Cause and Mass Effect
by claihm solais
Summary: Mass Effect is a great game. A fun game. But the fun and games stop when it all becomes real...when I find myself on the Citadel, with the terrible knowledge of what's coming. Can one person really make a difference? I'm sure as hell going to try, because the Reapers aren't taking over this galaxy on my watch.
1. Chapter 1

**Title**: Cause and Mass Effect

**Category**: Action/Adventure/Humor

**Setting**: Mass Effect, late 2182

**Rating**: M

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Mass Effect, Bioware and EA do.

**Author's Note:** Thanks to TheRev28 for his feedback and help on this story. If you haven't already, go check out his awesome SI _Welcome to the Family_, and it's sequel, _Welcome to the New Family_!

V-V

**Chapter One**

Owww, my head hurts. You know, since I don't drink, I wouldn't think it possible for me to wake up with a hangover. Actually, since I've never _had_ a hangover, I'm not even sure what they feel like, but this sure feels like one. What the hell did I do last night? I roll around, trying to get away from the light that's filtering through my eyelids.

And promptly roll off the chair I'm sitting on. Well, that hurt. Wait, a chair? Oh, right, I think I fell asleep at my desk. Man, opening your eyes with a pounding headache is really, _really_ hard. When I finally manage to squint in a way that makes me not want to throw up, the ground feels...weird. It's too smooth to be the carpet in my room. And it's the wrong color. My carpet's white, this is grey. Charcoal grey, like they use on sidewalks and stuff. Not to mention the fact that my room's gone.

The fuck?

Better get up, I do _not_ want to get caught laying around on the ground here, wherever here is. It's really strange, the sun's shining - at least I think it's shining, it's not really too bright, so after a few moments I don't have to shield my eyes, and my headache's finally clearing, and I hear water splashing, but the smell's...off, for being outdoors. The air smells kind of processed, and a little stale. Kind of like an airplane, really.

Time to look around, I guess. My neck has a crick in it - to be expected after spending the night in a desk chair, I suppose - and I feel the distinct need to yawn and stretch and pop all my joints back into place, but otherwise I don't actually feel too bad after the initial bout of vertigo upon waking up. I'm in an alleyway that, despite all cliches, is actually brightly lit and there's sunlight streaming in above me between gleaming white and silver skyscrapers. Ignoring for a moment the fact that it's totally illogical that I should wake up in a different place than I went to bed in, excluding, of course, such crazy ideas like abductions, invasion of the pod people, and similarly crazy thoughts, that just leaves me staring, slack-jawed, at the sight before me.

Well, I'll be damned. Maybe I'm dreaming. I think staying up late to finish Mass Effect 3 last night was a bad idea (Kai Leng on Insanity is one _tough_ son of a bitch to kill with a Vanguard), because that's the only logical explanation for the fact that I'm standing on the Citadel and looking at the Presidium towers. And...yep, there's a hanar floating past the edge of my vision as I inch towards the end of the alley. This is either a dream, or an epilepsy-induced coma, or one hell of an acid trip, because there's _no way_ I just woke up on the goddamn Citadel.

Out of reflex, I reach into my pockets. Just as I suspected, I got nothing on me; no cell phone, no wallet. Of course, that'd just be way too convenient. They're probably still sitting on my dresser at home where I left them when I got home from work. I poke my head out of the alley and immediately pull it back as my head starts swimming in alien languages. Crap, this was so much easier in the game when everyone conveniently spoke English. I giggle. I actually, honest-to-God, giggle. Yeah, I can't quite decide whether to panic and break out into hysterics, or laugh at the absurdity of it all.

Like I said. What. The. Fuck?

Okay, maybe I'm dreaming. I pinch my arm. Yeaaaouch. Okay, not dreaming. Coma? Unlikely, not like I'm epileptic, and I like to think I'm in reasonably good health, barring any freak spontaneous brain aneurysms. Okay, calm down. Breathe in, breathe out. No need to freak out. There's gotta be a logical explanation for this, right?

If there is, I sure can't think of one. Maybe I'm in one of those crazy fanfics, where the authors get sucked into Mass Effect for whatever reason. Although, if I was in a fanfic, I'm pretty sure I'd know about it. Or maybe I'm breaking the fourth wall just by thinking about being in a fanfic. Shit, that makes my head hurt. I see a couple of humans walk by, huddled in their group and pointing out an asari as they chatter amongst themselves excitedly. Man, I've never seen a real asari before. Which makes sense, since they're fictional, or so I thought.

She's so...blue. I wonder if they come in different shades? I mean, every asari I've seen in the game came in the same shade of blue as Liara, so...Shuttles hiss by overhead, their engines surprisingly quiet as they dart through the air, and for the first time I notice that the artificial sky of the Citadel wards is, actually, just as two-dimensional as it appeared in the game. It's a sheet of light providing the day/night cycle at an altitude I'd guess to be about twenty or so klicks, considering how high some shuttles and starships are flying.

Holy freaking Jesus on a pogostick. There's a turian frigate flying overhead, on docking approach I'd guess, because it's flying really, _really_ low. It's really freaky, because it's so quiet, it's just a deep hum, maybe something akin to a very deep bass as it passes by, nothing like the roar of jet turbines or rocket engines.

I just stare for a couple of minutes as the Presidium Commons open up before me as I continue to walk aimlessly. Over there's the statue commemorating the krogan victory in the Rachni wars. And to the left of that is the mass relay monument. I walk past the market place, where I remember that volus who was working for the Shadow Broker had his shop set up, Barla Von, I think his name was. And there's asari and hanar and volus all over the damn place! Even an elcor, and he's huge, I mean, I can see how they'd just be able to lumber into a ground battle carrying heavy artillery on their backs. I can't really understand a word of what they're saying, but just the sound of their voices...

I halt at the lake in the center of the Commons, just staring down into the water. I remember in one of the games, I forget which, there was a krogan who was wondering if there were fish in there. I think it was Mass Effect 2, actually. It doesn't really matter, because this is when it hits me.

I'm in Mass Effect.

And I have no idea what the hell I'm doing here. I can't even breathe for a moment as the implications sink in.

Well, let's think about this logically. If this is a hallucination, or a really persistent dream, then I've got nothing to worry about. I might even have some fun with this. I can't help but grin at that thought, because, hell, _I'm in Mass Effect_! This could be bloody awesome!

On the other hand, if I'm stuck here, for real, then I'd be shit out of luck. No way back, and I don't even want to think about what happened to me when I was whisked away to...here. I think there was one Mass Effect self-insert where the SI actually died to get here. No, don't go there. Don't even want to think about that.

At any rate, it doesn't bear thinking about that right now, anyway, because one way or the other, I'm stuck here. I head over to the VI console. Might as well figure out when I am.

"Good afternoon...records not found. Welcome to the Presidium Commons. I am Avina, the Citadel's tour and assistance VI. Would you like to create a user profile?"

"Sure, I guess." Okay, so sadly, unlike some of the fanfics I'd read, there was no anthropomorphic representation of Death or another otherwise benevolent entity that conveniently provided me with a background and credentials. That'd make things...difficult. Although, do I even _want_ to join Shepard's crew? I know what's going to happen, but still...I'm an engineer, not a soldier, and my degrees and experience mean nothing in the world of Mass Effect. Then again, if I _don't_ do anything, the galaxy's going to go to hell, anyway, considering the Mass Effect 3 ending. The DLC isn't out yet, but I'm still pretty sure it won't change anything, like the mass relays blowing up and such. Which leaves the galaxy in a pretty shitty place.

Fuck. Hallucination or not, I can't let that happen. I mean, it scares the crap out of me, but there's no way I'm not helping with the Reaper war. Avina flickers for a moment as she creates a record in her database.

"Please state your name and planet of origin."

Hm. Maybe I'll be in luck, and I'm just on the Citadel illegally. Man, that sounds wrong when I say it like that. "Patrick Grayson, Earth."

"No records found," Avina says after a few seconds. Quantum computing for the win, I guess. "Would you like to try a different name, or submit a DNA/RNA sample?"

"Wait, could I ask you something before we do this?" I just thought of something. The fact that humans are on the Citadel indicates that it's post-First Contact war, which is good. But I have no idea when the Reapers are going to come, or if I'm even close to 2183.

"Certainly. Standing by."

"What date is it?"

Avina rattles off a string of numbers in reply that mean absolutely nothing to me.

"Could you convert that into Earth standard time?" I ask.

"Certainly. The current date in Earth standard time is October 17, 2182."

Okay, I know the _Normandy_ is launched on her shakedown cruise to Eden Prime sometime in 2183, which gives me three months at worst, and almost a year at best. That's...that's good, I guess. Gives me time to get the lay of the land, if this really isn't a very elaborate hallucination, not to mention figure out a way to get myself on a prototype military frigate. Wonderful. Just freaking wonderful. Of course they couldn't give a specific date in Mass Effect, that'd make things too easy.

Apparently, I've been staring at Avina for too long, because she's active again. "Would you like to continue with your profile creation?"

"Widen search parameters to all human colonies." Well, it's worth a shot.

Again, Avina is only still for a split second while she blitzes through her databases. "No record found. Facial recognition is insufficient to identify a match in approximately seven hundred and sixteen thousand matches for the search string. No records matching facial recognition or biometrics found in C-Sec customs archive."

Oh shit.

"C-Sec has been alerted to your potentially unauthorized and unsanctioned visit to the Citadel. Please remain here until officers arrive. Have a pleasant day."

And she's gone. Well, shit. I wonder if I should take off? I mean, she was polite enough to let me know C-Sec is coming and all, and she just asked me not to leave, so technically, I'm free to leave, right? Guess it doesn't matter anymore as a skycar comes to a halt next to me, and a pair of C-Sec officers step out. Geez, these guys are quick.

Just freaking wonderful. I haven't been on the Citadel for fifteen minutes, and I'm already being arrested. What a great start to my campaign to save the galaxy.

T

All things considered, it could've been worse. I mean, I'm stuck in a tiny cell in C-Sec headquarters in Zakera Ward, without money, ID, or anything, really, except the clothes on my back (and the turian C-Sec officer who brought me in looked at me as if I'd stolen _those_, too), and they're outside searching for an identification record they'll likely never find. But hey, at least I haven't been shot at yet, so my day's not completely ruined.

And I'm not sharing the cell with anyone else, so that's a plus. So now I'm just cooling my heels in here until I'm let out, or they decide what to do with me. The cell's not much, to be honest, I'd say it's a typical jail cell, but I have no clue what a typical jail cell looks like. Guess I might as well lay back down on the cot in the corner and see what happens next. Not like I can bust out of here, after all.

"That's quite the mess you've gotten yourself in already." The words come from nowhere in particular and I shoot right back up. Who said that?

That voice...it sounds so familiar. Then I hear a snap and there's a flash of light in the corner of the room. Oh fuck, what's _he_ doing here? This isn't Star Trek, goddammit, and he's supposed to be _fictional_! Standing there, leaning against the wall, resplendent in his red-and-black Starfleet uniform, is John de Lancie, complete with that insufferable smirk that used to drive Picard and Janeway nuts in their respective TV shows. Okay, now I _know_ this isn't a hallucination, because even on my worst days I'm not crazy enough to imagine _that_.

"Q," I mutter. I just _know_ he's here to mess with me, because, hell, he's _Q_. He _always_ messes with people, whether they want him to or not.

"Ah, you know me? Good, good. Saves me the trouble of introducing myself." He claps his hands cheerfully. "Would you like a cup of tea? These accommodations are _quite_ dreadfully primitive, and Jean-Luc always likes his Earl Grey."

"This has _got_ to be a nightmare..."

The omnipotent Q tuts in disagreement. "No, not at all. This is quite real, let me assure you. You are, in fact, in the universe of Mass Effect, as created by the company Bioware for your entertainment in _your_ universe."

"The fuck you doing here then, Q?" I sigh. This just keeps getting better and better. I mean, doesn't he have other people in his own universe to bother?

"Straight to business? How rude, even Kathy usually indulges me before asking me that." Q almost looks disappointed.

"Yeah, well, today hasn't exactly been fun for me, either, and it barely qualifies as morning." I start ticking things off my fingers. "Let's see, there's the fact that I'm _not_ home, but instead in a fictional universe, then there's the fact that I landed here without ID, so now I'm stuck in a tiny cell while the police is trying to figure out who the hell I am, and to top it all off, there's yet _another_ fictional character infamous for his meddling in human affairs standing across from me in my cell!"

"You humans are no fun."

This is surreal. I mean, being in Mass Effect is one thing, but _Q_, of all people, being here? That's just bordering on the ridiculous. I wonder if I just fell out of bed and hit my head somewhere and am just imagining all this. Maybe I'll wake up with a nasty bump on my head and a headache, and this'll all be gone. "What do you want?" is all I can manage, rubbing my temples to stave off the coming headache.

"Well, quite simply put...I put you here," Q announces, as if that was a grand feat worthy of recognition. He's grinning that stupid, shit-eating grin again that makes me want to haul back and smack him, and it leaves me briefly wondering what would happen if he ever met Wrex. I look at him pointedly.

"I suppose you want to know why?"

Don't get mad, don't get mad, don't get mad, don't give him the entertainment or the satisfaction...it's my new mantra. "That would be nice, yes." I'm surprised he's actually willing to be helpful, considering how cryptic his usual interactions with humans are.

Q shrugs as a steaming cup of tea appears in his hand. "Well, it's quite simply. You're here because the way it ended is, pardon my French, _c'est des conneries_. So I figured I'd put someone here to fix it."

I open my mouth to retort, but nothing comes to mind. I mean, what the fuck? "Why _me_?" I finally ask him. "I mean, why not someone like, like Patton, or Rommel, or some other military genius who could've fought circles around the Reapers? Hell, if this is real and you're real, you could've brought James T. fucking-Kirk!"

And Kirk would probably have made the Reapers shit themselves and caused Harbinger to run away screaming for his mommy by sheer awesomeness and manliness alone. I mean, he's James T. Kirk! He bluffed klingons into backing down with a made-up maneuver consisting of a made-up word! I can't really help but grin like an idiot as I imagine the Reapers facing off against _that_.

"Who says you're the only one?"

That gives me pause. "You mean...I'm not?"

"Not at all. As much as I'd like to see the havoc one lone human could cause in this universe, I'm not naive enough to believe some of you won't get it wrong, after all." Aaaaand, that insufferable smirk is back. "Besides, it's very entertaining watching all of you come up with your own solutions."

"Who else is here?" Maybe I don't have to go about this alone, after all.

"Oh, no, you misunderstand. You see, each of you is in a different part of the multiverse, so you don't have to worry about running into each other. It just wouldn't be as entertaining, otherwise."

"This is all _entertainment_ to you? Some kind of sick _game_?" I growl, rising from the cot. This is bullshit, omnipotent or not, Q's about to get punched.

"Of course!" he replies as if it's the most natural thing in the world. "I do have to keep myself occupied, after all. And this is much better for Q Jr. than any soap opera."

"Then tell me _why_, Q? Why just rip me, and others if I'm to believe you, from their lives and put them here, _knowing what's going to happen_? What do you expect us to do?"

Q's being uncharacteristically serious now, his smirk completely gone, giving me pause. I halt in my advance towards him. "The best you can," he says simply. "That's all. You're here to do what any of your admittedly limited species can do. Your best."

"But...but why? What's the point?"

"The point," Q's looking up at the ceiling now, but for some reason I get the feeling he's looking _past_ it, into the great unknown beyond, "is that your species can do extraordinary things when placed into impossible circumstances. And it's your time to show it to the rest of the Continuum."

"So...did I get that right? You transplanted random people into other universes to see how they react to...to show the other Q that we're...what, exactly?"

"That your race is warlike, power-mongering, obstinate...and, when it really comes down to it, capable of achieving truly great things."

"Well fuck me sideways six ways to church." That's...heavy. Almost reminds me of the whole situation with the Reapers. It's funny, really, humans never seem to just lie down and accept defeat when it comes down to it, no matter who the foe.

And Q's smirk is back. "But I've got my reasons, trust me. I must be getting soft, actually explaining them to a human, but I guess Kathy would approve."

I can't help but get in one last barb, especially since I stopped keeping track of Star Trek canon after Voyager ended, with the exception of that reboot movie. "Still haven't got Janeway to marry you, huh?"

"Not yet!" Q grins mischievously, and suddenly I feel sorry for the woman, fictional though she may be. Or maybe not so fictional, considering the situation I'm in.

Well, I guess I better make the most of it. No sitting back now, definitely not. "I guess I better get to work, then huh? Especially since you weren't nice enough to give me an ID of any sort. Those guys out there probably think I'm some kind of batarian terrorist who's had facial reconstructive surgery and genetic modification."

"Ah, yes," Q hums along for a moment. "I do admit, that one guy had it quite easier, especially since I placed him in a position to receive the vision from the Prothean beacon. What was his name again? Donald? Dylan?"

Wait, hold up, back up a second. "Wait...the guy from _Welcome to the Family_?"

Q snaps his fingers and nods vigorously. "That's the one! He's a great shot with a rifle, by the way, unlike you."

"_You're_ Death? the Death trying to fight off those...what'd he call them? Cosmic bureaucrats?" Holy crap. All those self-inserts I've been reading lately are actually happening as I read them. Or rather, happened as I read them. I wonder if anyone's reading this right now? If this is all a story popping up on someone else's browser, who then in turn gets sucked into the Mass Effect universe? Damn, that's meta.

"But don't you worry, I've arranged matters. It wouldn't do for your adventure to end before it started, now, would it?"

Part of me is really excited that I'll get to do this. Don't get me wrong, I love my life and my job, but this...I think everyone's dreamed of being able to make a difference at some point in their lives, and this is my chance. Besides, I get to meet some of my favorite sci-fi characters _ever_. Hmm...I wonder if Shepard's male or female here. But I get ahead of myself here. The rest of me is, quite frankly, terrified, partly because I know what's to come, and partly because this shit's now _real_. "Will I ever get home?"

That stupid shit-eating grin is back in full force now. "Now where'd be the fun in telling you? Not to worry, if you're successful, it won't matter. Trust me."

"Knowing you, I'd rather not. Trust you, that is." In fact, I don't trust him as far as I can throw him. Of course, him being the incorporeal entity he is, I can't actually throw him at all, which should tell you something.

"Trust me," he repeats. "There will not be any lasting consequences to you or your life if you succeed in this little adventure. As Kathy told me, you humans place so much value on your promises, so I give you my word."

"All right," I guess that's as much as I'm going to get out of him. "So what's this help I'm getting?"

He actually waggles his finger in front of my nose. "Can't tell you that, wouldn't be any fun. You'll have to stick around and find out. Now, I really need to be going, the Missus is calling me." With a grandiose clap, he's gone in another flash of light, leaving me alone in my tiny cell at Zakera Ward's C-Sec office wondering if I just had a hallucination within a hallucination.

T

"For the last time, who are you, and how did you get on the Citadel?"

"I told you, I don't know!" This is frustrating, it really is. I mean, it's not like I can come out and say, _oh, an extraplanar being of unspeakable power placed me here for his entertainment because humanity has something to prove_. Yeah, that'd go over real well. "I just woke up this morning in an alley near the Presidium Commons out of the blue. I'm not even supposed to be here!"

"You got that right," the second officer mutters.

I let out a heavy sigh. We've been stuck in this interrogation room for at least half an hour, and we _still_ haven't got past the second question. The first, naturally, was my name. Their search, much like Avina's, turned up zilch. Nothing. Nada. As expected, there's no record of me _anywhere_. Then again, I don't belong in this universe, although how I'm supposed to help Shepard save the galaxy when I'm stuck in a C-Sec holding cell is quite the interesting question.

The turian of the pair - the other guy's a salarian - sighs and taps his omni-tool again. "Okay, let's start over. We can't find any record of you anywhere. Your facial recognition and biometrics don't match up to any registered human anywhere. So, who are you?"

"Maybe he's just a stoned duct rat, Pakto," the salarian offers helpfully. "You know what Red Sand does to people's memory."

"I'm not a druggie!"

"He's not a druggie!"

Wow. I'm tempted to call jinx on that. But seriously, I would be fine if they accused me of being a terrorist, or an illegal immigrant, or something, but hell if I let myself be called a drug addict. I know, my priorities are kind of skewed.

The turian glances at his partner, then back at me. "His bloodwork came back clean. He's not on Sand. Look," he seems almost tired, and it's barely even noon. Maybe he's doing overtime from the night shift?

"Yes?"

"Why don't you make this easy for all of us and just tell us what we want to know? I can tell you're a good kid, but we've got our job to do. We can't let any unauthorized personnel aboard the Citadel, and you show up in none of our records."

"And like I've been telling you from the beginning, I haven't the slightest clue how I got here. Just woke up this morning and bam! There I was." And I'm getting hungry now. I mean, I haven't eaten since dinner last night, and now it's what? Past noon, probably. Hard to tell without a window. I wonder if they plan on keeping me here until I go on hunger strike?

The door to the room opens before any of them can respond, and I barely manage to keep my jaw from dropping, because right now, a ridiculous grin is fighting to spread itself over my face. I'm pretty sure I'm twitching and look like a mad man before I can get it under control, but _hell_. This is Q's exit strategy for me? Damn! I mean, seriously, _dayum_.

"You are dismissed, officers. Special Investigations will take things from here. It's already been cleared with your captain." The name tag on her jacket identifies her as Agent Carmichael, but her accent is just like in the game, a slight lilt of British, and her demeanor is about icy enough to freeze the room if one isn't careful. The two C-Sec officers look at each other before shrugging and leaving the room. The door shuts behind them, and the woman who just walked in locks it and takes a seat across from me. She pulls out a small device and places it on the table. It turns on with a tiny electronic chirp, and then blue eyes are staring at me inquisitively.

She's sizing me up, I can tell. Why she's here now, I have no idea, though I figure she was probably an operative long before her involvement in a certain project. Since she's still staring at me, I figure I may as well start things off. Dredging up what I remember from her dossier in the Shadow Broker's base and the games, I give her a tiny grin. Let's see if I can shake the Ice Queen.

"Well...good afternoon, Operative Lawson."


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: **Wow, thanks for the kind response. I'm glad this story's off to a good start, so let's see where we can take it, shan't we?

**Chapter Two**

I give her a moment to let that sink in. Her eyes widen at the mention of her real name, before narrowing in suspicion. Yep, there it is, that thin-lipped almost feral snarl she gets when things don't go to plan. It's only there for a split second before she regains her composure, ever in perfect control of herself. I lean back in my chair, somewhat more relaxed. At least now I have a bargaining chip: information. Worse come to worst, I'll lay out the location of every single Cerberus operations site I can remember from all three games, including their headquarters.

"I think you're confusing me with someone else," she informs me haughtily.

"I don't think so, actually."

"Enlighten me." She props her elbows up on the table and stares at me, and suddenly I get the feeling I'm prey to be stalked.

Time to lay it on thick then, I suppose. I mean, if she were here to kill me, I'd be dead already - Miranda's absolutely lethal in the game, and I'm sure she is in real life, as well. But the only reason she'd be here is if Cerberus is interested in me, for whatever reason, so I figure I've got some leeway. I swing my arm over the back of the chair and prop my feet up on the table in a deliberate show of relaxation.

"Aren't you the investigator?"

"The investigator capable of having you deported to a prison close to the batarian border," she retorts evenly. Ouch, okay, maybe I overdid it.

I take my feet off the table and sit up straight. "Fair enough. I'm guessing you're here to ask me the same questions those two were?" I jab my thumb at the closed door.

"My superiors have a certain interest in your arrival on the Citadel."

"I'm guessing showing up without any documentation sent up quite a few red flags."

"Who are you?" Miranda leans across the table, causing me to flinch back. That woman's scary up close, let me tell you, all of her genetically perfect looks aside, she's _scary_ as fuck.

I've got to bite back a snarky remark there; just because I've had to deal with C-Sec asking me the same question all day long doesn't mean she'll be any more inclined to believe me than they were. And something tells me she probably wouldn't appreciate a joke right now. "I'm pretty sure you already know everything I told C-Sec."

"I know what you _wanted_ to tell C-Sec," she retorts.

"What do you want me to tell you? That I'm some kind of, of spy, or something?"

Her eyes narrow in suspicion...maybe that was the wrong thing to say, considering how much I've let slip about my knowledge of her already. "It's beginning to look that way. An undocumented human, with no past, no records, and information that is highly classified."

"I'm not a spy," I tell her with a long sigh. "Don't you think that if I was a trained spy I'd let my cover be blown by something as stupid as talking to the Citadel's VI? Hell, if I was a covert operative, don't you think I'd actually, y'know, have a _cover_?"

"Then who are you? How did you get on the Citadel?"

Okay, time to go on the counter-offensive, I think. "Why are you here, _Operative Lawson_? What does the Illusive Man want?" There it is again...that slight flinch in her eyes that tells me I've struck home. Time to dig in my heels.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"I'm sure you don't. I mean, what could Cerberus possibly want with some random guy off the street who..." Who appeared out of nowhere on the Citadel, the seat of galactic politics, in the Presidium Commons, one of the most well-guarded places in the galaxy. Dammit, I hate it when Q knows what he's doing.

Miranda sees my hesitation, and just sits back and crosses her arms.

"You want to know how I got through Citadel Security, don't you? This isn't about who or what I am, or where I came from, but how Cerberus can possibly exploit holes in Citadel security measures to smuggle operatives aboard, isn't it?"

Miranda smirks. "Maybe you're not quite hopeless, after all. If there is a breach in Citadel security-"

"There isn't. At least not one that you can exploitable right now." At least, I don't think there is. Apart from the usual ones in the games that are so big I could fly a Death Star through. I mean, come on! Even after Saren's attack on the Citadel, C-Sec looks at Legion and dismisses him as a mech? What did Legion say again? _Geth do not _intentionally_ infiltrate_? Seriously, C-Sec is kind of a joke in some respects.

"Then how did you arrive on the Citadel without any record of you?" Miranda arches one delicate eyebrow, and I can tell she's going to keep digging until I give in. And this time, I can't actually afford to alienate her, because she's my ticket out of my C-Sec holding cell.

"It's...rather difficult to explain. Not at all believable, either."

"Humor me."

All right, she asked for it. "I was brought here by an omnipotent being for his entertainment because he thinks humanity is better than any soap opera for his kid."

It's really hard to not smile as her jaw just works up and down for a few seconds as words elude her at the sheer ridiculousness of my statement. "You're either a very convincing liar, or you actually believe that bullshit," she finally says.

"Take your pick, it doesn't really make much of a difference."

"I can already see you're going to be difficult."

I chuckle at that. "Actually, I've been called a stubborn, obstinate mule on several occasions," I tell her.

"Are you sure you want to tell me all about how uncooperative you can be?" She quirks up an eyebrow, although I think there's a trace of humor behind her words.

"There's got things I'd like to discuss with you in private, _operative_, regarding your employer. I've got information I think he may be interested in." There it is again, that brief flicker whenever I mention Cerberus, or the fact that I know more than I should.

"I don't think the Special Investigations Unit would be interested in anything you have to say until you've disclosed how you came to arrive on the Citadel."

"I've already told you. An omnipotent-"

"And I want a straight answer, dammit. I can choose to let you rot in this cell till the stars go dark, unless you give me a very good reason. Give me something, _anything_, to verify what you're saying."

All right, this is harder than I thought. I could tell her what I know about her sister, but considering how protective Miranda is about her, she'd just as likely kill me to prevent an information leak. And I really don't want to reveal that I know Tim's sitting in Anadius, because that could potentially screw over the timeline and cause them to move Cronos Station. I take a deep breath and gesture towards the door.

"We speaking privately?"

"As privately as it gets within the Citadel," she confirms, glancing down at the little round device she set on the table earlier.

"All right. You wanted something, here it is. Your name is Miranda Lawson, born in 2150. You were genetically engineered by your father, Henry Lawson, in pursuit of the 'perfect' human, using a modified copy of his own genome. As a result, your physical, cognitive, and biotic abilities far surpass human norm. Eventually, your father's strict lifestyle caused you to rebel and run away to live your own life. Seeking protection from his network of contacts and resources, you approached the pro-human organization known as Cerberus. The actual reason you joined up with them, aside from protection, is that they've never told you anything is impossible; they give you a task, and the resources to accomplish it, and you love that they allow you to excel. You've risen through their ranks and are now one of the few people to take orders from the Illusive Man only. And no, this information did not come from the Shadow Broker. Intrigued yet?"

"How do you know all this?"

I'm not quite sure if I did a good thing or a bad thing there, because now she's eyeing me like a potential threat, like, a _real_ threat, not a threat to her persona as a Citadel Special Investigations agent. But the cards are on the table, and I gotta roll with it, I guess. "Look, I've got my secrets, and you've got yours. I've got a proposal for you, if you're interested."

"Go on."

"I'm...very well informed. How or why doesn't matter for now. Let's just say I've got enough information on Cerberus to shut it down, if I were to take it to the Alliance." I hold up my hand in what I hope is a placating manner. "I've got no intention of doing that. In fact, if you can believe it, we both actually want the same thing. We both want to advance humanity and make sure we're in a position to protect our own out there."

"And why should I believe that?"

Hmm. Miranda's always struck me as the kind of person whose loyalty to Cerberus was because she believed in their ideals, if not their methods. Well, that, and she kind of owed Tim one for hiding her sister. If wonder if I can start sowing some doubts right now, maybe get her to see that Cerberus isn't as clean as she'd like to think. "If I were you, I'd check on the Pragia facility. I've got it on good authority that they ignored your shutdown order and went rogue."

And I hope I didn't just screw over Jack's loyalty mission - Jack should be long gone from there, and I don't think that crazy dude you meet during the mission has moved in yet. Miranda stiffens at the mention of Pragia; I think it's not just the fact that I know about the facility, but that I also know about the shutdown order. So now either I've got a foothold with her, or she'll shoot me when I'm done.

"There's more," I press on, hoping that I can keep her interested enough to _not_ shoot me. Yeah, not shooting me would be good.

"What do you want?"

"Let's drop all pretenses for the moment. I could easily list the location of every Cerberus operation I know about, and you could run out to confirm them, but I think I've made my point-" she nods in agreement, at least for now. "So here's where we are. You at least know that some of the information I have is legit. You have no reason to trust me, and I get that, I really do, but I need your help. The human-turian prototype frigate SSV _Normandy_ is scheduled to launch on her shakedown cruise soon, and I need to be aboard that ship."

"Let's assume I buy your story for even a moment," Miranda says, and I can tell she's tense. Shit, I think she's about to blow my head off if I can't come up with a good reason for her not to. What was I _thinking_, thinking that blackmailing Cerberus was a good idea?

"Yes?" I offer carefully. Very, very carefully.

"If this is a pitch to recruit you into Cerberus...you're doing a shitty job."

I manage a weak chuckle at that. "Yeah, as far as job interviews go, it wasn't my best performance, I'll admit that."

"You do realize I don't trust you at all."

"I know."

"The only reason I'm still listening to you is because I need to know how you got your hands on that information. Why somehow, a person shows up with no records, no history, _nothing_, who knows things about Cerberus that he shouldn't."

Yeah, this wasn't my brightest idea. "I'll be honest with you here, Lawson. I know you don't trust me, but I've got things I need to do and information I need to follow up on. And I'll need your help."

Miranda stares at me for a moment, and it takes every bit of stubbornness I got not to flinch in terror. I swear, she could make a krogan wet himself with that glare. Well, maybe. Not Wrex or Grunt, though, but I digress. "And why should we help you, instead of taking you into custody and interrogating you for everything you know?"

"Because we have the same goal...making sure humanity survives." I wonder if I can nudge her in the right direction, maybe get her loyalties to shift away from the Illusive Man and Cerberus and to Shepard a little earlier. Hell, maybe I can even get her to trust me, somehow.

"Still doesn't tell me what you can offer to Cerberus in return. We work with the best and brightest, and you don't strike me as either."

I shrug at that. "Never claimed to be."

"All right," she crosses her arms and suddenly looks very defiant. "Then explain to me why you need to get aboard an Alliance frigate. Legitimately, I suppose. That's a tall order, even for our resources and connections, even more so as the _Normandy_'s crew is hand-picked."

Do I explain to her about the Reapers, or not? I think it might be a bit too early for that, maybe after Sovereign's attack on Eden Prime. But somehow I don't think telling her _I've got my reasons_ is going to cut it. "The best place for me to use my information to help humanity is aboard that ship," I finally say.

There's not much else I _can _say, really, without giving away too much, or having to explain about the Reapers. She's silent for a long time, and I get the feeling she's judging whether my response is satisfactory. Time to play my trump card. "There's more. I've got...I may be able to help protect your sister."

There it is. If nothing else, the information from Miranda's loyalty mission and her father's eventual work for the Illusive Man is all I can offer to Miranda, and hope she takes it as a personal matter. Either that or she'll think I'm an agent working for her father and shoot me on the spot. Okay, I got to stop thinking morbid thoughts. No more thinking about me getting shot!

Her glare snaps back to me instantly at the mention of her sister. "How do you know about my sister?"

"Same way I know about you, and the Illusive Man, and Cerberus operations. I know you have no reason to trust me, and I know I sound like a crazy guy who's high on Red Sand, but give me a chance. That's all I ask."

For a moment there it looks like she's just going to commit me to the loony bin, but something I said must've broken through. Damned if I know what it was, but I'm not going to question it. But she's actually giving me a curt nod. "All right. I'll believe you...for now. We'll arrange for your transfer to one of our safe houses where we can continue this discussion."

The stare she gives me screams _this isn't over yet_. But at least it's a start.

T

Miranda is silent during the drive from the C-Sec station. The skycar passes by over Zakera Ward, and she puts it down on a landing pad at the far end of the commercial district. Five minutes into the flight, I've given up trying to keep track of our exact location, and all I know is, "head towards the nearest transit station and take it to the level 26 docking bays" in order to get to the areas I'm familiar with from Mass Effect 2. It's really too bad that Mass Effect 1 never stated where exactly the upper and lower wards locations where, though I'm sure I can find out by asking for Chora's Den.

She's also silent as she leads me through a hallway on level 31 and into a keypad-secured room. Her body hides the pad as she punches in the code, and I can see the brief flash of a retinal scanner before the door opens to admit us both. It's actually not too shabby of an apartment, with a window overlooking the ward and a decently-sized living space. It looks completely unlived in, and all the furniture is pristine. I wonder if Miranda's ever actually ever been here before? A vidcomm unit sits on a desk in the corner of the room, with a small part sectioned off by a dividing wall to serve as a kitchen. It's really quite cozy. Except for the fact that it's perpetual daylight out here in the wards, and the shutters are closed. Although I think that last one might be more for protection against snipers than because the sunlight's bothering anyone.

"Stay here," she orders briskly, and takes off through a door that I figure leads to either a bedroom or an office. I reckon there's a QEC unit in there and she's contacting Tim, so I make myself comfortable on the couch. The walls are bare, and with the shutters closed, there's nothing really in the room for me to look at.

What a day it's been. I wake up to find myself in the universe of Mass Effect...and then it turns out this is either a _really_ weird dream, or too crazy to be a dream. When I went to bed, or rather, when I passed out, my biggest worry was how I was going to beat Kai Leng on Insanity...and now, I may end up having to do it for real. Well, in three years' time, give or take, if I even make it that far. Shit, I've got to try not to screw up the timeline too badly, which means I have to be really careful about what information I pass on to Miranda. It's got to be just enough to make me valuable, but not enough to change the course of events from the game.

That's going to be tough. Maybe I can come up with a better, secondary, incentive for them to keep me around? But there's no way around it, I need to get on board the _Normandy_ somehow. Even if it means I have to find one of her enlisted personnel and whack them over the head to steal their ID tags. And hell, I'm actually _offering_ to work for Cerberus? Well, I guess it'll give me an inroad into Project Lazarus when the time comes. Shit, this is messed up.

Since I've got no watch on me, and there's not a clock to be found in the living room, I have no idea how long I dozed off, but when I wake up, Miranda's sitting at the kitchen table, an unreadable expression on her face and nursing a cup of coffee. Oh joy, I can tell her conversation with Tim didn't make her happy. In fact, she's changed out of her uniform and into something I'm more used to seeing her in - those crazy catsuits she wears in the game. Hm. I must've been asleep longer than I thought.

I'm kind of hungry, actually. No idea what time it is, but I'm pretty sure I missed breakfast and lunch. I half want to ask her if she's got anything to eat, but she seems pretty deep in thought right now, so I just walk past her into the kitchen proper. After a few minutes of rummaging around her cupboards and drawers, though, I've come to the realization that apparently, either she's a zombie who doesn't eat, or no one actually lives here, because they're all empty. Like, totally, new-house-empty. Nothing, not even dishes. Kind of makes me wonder where she got her coffee cup.

"Here." She must've read my mind, because suddenly she's sliding a ration bar across the table. Huh. Maybe she's not quite as cold as I thought.

I tear the wrapper and sit down across from her. "Thanks." She just nods in response, staring back down into her coffee while I chew.

"So, what happens to me now?" I ask her.

Miranda's attention snaps back to me. "The Illusive Man thinks that someone whose past is essentially a clean slate could be...useful as a field operative. _If_ you survive the training."

"I'm guessing there's a but coming?"

"You'll be under the supervision of another operative until you've proven your loyalty to the cause. You will complete any assignments we have for you, and you will hand over any information you have that could be vital to Cerberus operations." She doesn't seem happy with those terms. Guess I can't fault her. I'm a big unknown, and an even bigger security risk for Cerberus.

"And the _Normandy_?"

Miranda stops stirring the coffee. I actually think it's cold by now, because it doesn't look like she's even touched it. "It will take time to set up your cover, and that will require your evaluation by a senior operative, but he has agreed to place you aboard the _Normandy_ in deep cover, on the condition that you report directly to your supervisor about the vessel's ongoing activities."

"So basically you want me to keep an eye on her commanding officer?"

"An Alliance captain by the name of David Anderson. Ex-spectre candidate, ex-Alliance special ops, and his protégée...Commander Jane Shepard. Rumor has it the Alliance is goimg to push for her to be humanity's next Spectre candidate on Anderson's recommendation." Miranda shoots me a wry smile. It's tiny, but it's there. Yay, I think we're past the whole _I-want-to-kill-you_ phase. "But then again, I get the feeling you already knew that."

"Maybe." I can't really deny it. "Tell me about this Commander Shepard."

Miranda shakes her head. "Not now. We'll go over the dossiers and specifics of your assignment later. First order of business is evaluating your suitability for field work, so we can determine a possible cover identity for you aboard the _Normandy_."

"That doesn't sound too bad." It's better than I expected, actually. "So, who's going to be my handler and trainer?"

"Me."

Well...fuck. That would explain her mood. "I...see." It kind of does make me wonder why Tim would be so easily convinced. I mean, the guy has contingency plans for his contingencies, I doubt he'd be convinced to suddenly accept some random guy off the street with questionable intel as a field agent. "Why the sudden change of heart?"

"The Illusive Man thinks you could be a valuable asset to Cerberus, if you can be trained. Since you have no personal history, no ties that anyone can find, no contacts, no friends. For all intents and purposes, you don't exist." Miranda doesn't seem happy with Tim's assessment. Truth be told, I probably wouldn't be, either. "Your security risk is minimal, since you have no one else to turn to. At least, no one with any clout who'd be willing to believe your crazy accusations. It'll make it easy to either construct a deep cover identity for you, or make you disappear. It's, quite frankly, the perfect opportunity to get an operative aboard the _Normandy_, considering we've been trying to get someone past their thorough background checks for months. Anderson's borderline paranoid, and his XO isn't much better."

"All right."

"Besides, there is a prototype control chip that ties directly into a person's cybernetics that is as of yet untested." By the look on her face, I get the feeling she just volunteered me as a guinea pig. "It's something we'll consider later on in your training, once we've determined your suitability."

Dang, that's cold. I mean, it's not like I didn't expect something like this, working for Cerberus and all, but still. Besides, I have no cybernetics, anyway, so how is that going to work?

"I'm...not sure I'm comfortable having a control chip stuck in my head." I'm really not. I don't think I kept all the trembling out of my voice though, because shit, I hadn't thought about that, and it's a fucking scary thought.

For the first time I think I see an honest smile, however tiny, on her face. "I recommended to the Illusive Man that we should hold off on the control chip for now. We've yet to determine if you can be useful, and if we even need it."

Phew. Hey, maybe Miranda isn't as bad as I thought. "I'm guessing he also wants you to pick my brains on what I know?"

"In part. All the information you have is likely something he already has access to, but we're more interested in _how_ you know." Miranda sighs and leans back in her chair. "I haven't told him that you have information about Oriana."

"Why not?"

"Because it's a personal matter. But," she raises a hand threateningly, her biotics flaring for a brief instant, "you will keep me informed of _anything_ you know about my sister's situation, and you _will_ help me keep her safe. I don't care who your sources are, how you know, but if I find out you've kept something from me, I'll shoot you myself. Are we clear?"

"Crystal." Should've expected that, but I'm not going to complain.

"Good," Miranda nods, then stands up. "Follow me."

As she leads me through the door to the office, I notice that I was right; it's an office/bedroom combination with a QEC platform set up in the far corner. We pass through the room and through another door that she keys open. "Where are we going?"

"Your first assessment. Since I'm now your handler, it's my responsibility to make sure you're capable of handling whatever missions come our way."

Yeah, she's definitely not happy to be stuck babysitting me. "So what's first?"

We step out into an open area, and I realize why we're at the edge of the commercial sector. Cerberus must've rented out a whole goddamn _warehouse_, because we're standing in an honest-to-god indoor shooting range with targets that look like they're half a klick down range for sniper training. Miranda steps to one of the cabinets, unlocks it, and pulls out a compacted weapon.

"Since your biometrics indicate that you have no biotic aptitude whatsoever...weapons proficiencies." The gun unfolds easily in her grasp.

The weapon she holds is eerily familiar from the games. The double-body over-and-under barreled design of the M-8 Avenger assault rifle is hard not to recognize, and suddenly I start to wonder if this was such a good idea. I've never fired anything bigger than a sidearm before, and certainly never anything that had full auto capabilities. Hell, the biggest handgun I've fired is a 7.63 Tokarev pistol. Frankly, this beast looks intimidating up close. And even worse, I'll have to fire at _people_. I've never shot at anything other than inanimate targets at a range before. Shit, why didn't I think of this before?

"All right, I guess..." I take the rifle from her, fumbling a bit as I try and fight down the bile that just rose in my throat.

"You've never held a weapon before, have you." Miranda almost sounds amused. And she's absolutely going to torture me with this, I think. Dammit, doesn't this thing come with a manual? Where's the goddamn fire selector?

_Shh-kkt_. Oops, I think that was the wrong button, because I just caused it to collapse. There's got to be a button on here somewhere that'll unfold it again...

Well, at least this is entertaining her. This looked so much easier in the game where all it took was a touch of a button, and Shepard would smoothly draw the gun from the magnetic clip on the armor and extend it in a single easy motion. I finally find a button, and voila, I'm once again holding a full assault rifle in my hands. Okay, that was kind of embarassing.

"For your information, I've fired pistols before. Never anything bigger, really, not even hunting rifles," I tell her as I try and find a comfortable place to shoulder it. I mean, it can't be too different from firing a pistol from the Weaver stance, right?

Miranda stalks, I'm serious, that woman doesn't walk, she friggin' _stalks_, around me, correcting the way I stand and hold the rifle. It takes a while, but she's satisfied...and I'm utterly uncomfortable, with the rifle pressed against my shoulder and my elbows tucked in so that I can get a grip on the handguard. And this gun doesn't even come with a scope. I mean, seriously, how does anyone _aim_ this thing? No scope, no iron sights...not all of us have a targeting visor like Garrus, you know.

She flips a couple of switches, and a series of targets roll into view suspended by cables from the ceiling. "All right, let's see how well you can fire a gun."

That might be harder than it looks, because, did I mention this thing doesn't have iron sights? Or a scope? Or a red-dot? Or a laser? I mean, there's absolutely _no_ reference point on this damn thing. I realize I must be standing around like an idiot, because she's clearing her throat. All right, here goes nothing. I line up what I hope is a clean shot on one of the closer targets and press the trigger quickly. Maybe I can walk it across until I hit something...

The gun bucks slightly, digging into my shoulder. Okay, the recoil's kind of not too bad, and the trigger pull is smooth, but what surprised me more was how _loud _the gun is. In the game there just was this high-pitched whine when it fired, but there's an actual loud crack to it. Makes sense, since the projectile presumably breaks the sound barrier. Now where'd my round end up?

"Nice shot." Miranda sounds impressed. Wait, what?

Oh. There's a hole in the torso of a target halfway down the range. Yeah, I wasn't even close. "I was actually aiming at this one," I tell her sheepishly, pointing to a target that's no more than twenty yards away.

"You do realize the weapon has a scope. There's no need to shoot from the hip."

It does? I look down at the rifle in my hands, trying to figure out where it could possibly be. There are no controls on the gun at all, apart from the trigger and the button to fold it up, not even a fire selector or an ejector switch - oh, wait, this is before the invention of thermal clips, so the gun still works on an internal heat sink.

With a long-suffering sigh, Miranda grabs the Avenger and flips a catch on the top part of the gun, revealing an integrated red-dot. Well, that explains what the top half of the gun is for. "There. Now let's try again."

All right, let's do this! I pull the rifle up against my shoulder again, line up the target - man, this scope is nice, it even gives me the distance to target - and pull the trigger, more deliberately this time, and watch my round fly down range. _Holy flying Christ in a hand basket_! A single shot was fine in terms of recoil, but apparently, this thing's full auto by default, because the second and a half I have the trigger depressed while watching my shot, it spits out a dozen rounds! The muzzle climb wasn't too bad, certainly not as bad as I'd expected, but I still managed to stitch a line of holes clean up the target's torso.

"Hm. Not bad. Anyone can hit a target with time to line it up, though," Miranda comments.

"Short controlled bursts," I mutter to myself. At her curious glance, I explain. "It's something I tell myself whenever I deal with a full auto gun."

"I thought you said you'd never fired an automatic weapon before."

"Not a real one." Yeah, video games are not a good preparation for shooting a real gun. At all.

"Try again," Miranda orders.

I line up the next target, breathe out slowly, and press the trigger briefly. The gun spits out a three-round burst that puts a neat grouping in a target fifty yards down the range. Wow, I didn't expect the recoil to be so...minimal. I track through the scope to another target, putting another burst into that.

Twenty minutes and about as many targets later, Miranda calls a halt to the exercise. At least I'm getting the hang of looking through the scope at things, though the fact that it auto-zooms and focuses on whatever target it's pointing at is a little disorienting. It's a neat feature, sure, but having your vision suddenly displaced is really, really funky.

The Cerberus operative takes the rifle from my hands and shakes her head. "You're really slow at acquiring targets."

"I'm...not used to the limited peripheral vision through the scope," I tell her honestly.

"You'll learn." She quickly lifts the Avenger and its sharp staccato fills the air for several seconds as she proceeds to double-tap all twenty of my previous targets in a fraction of the time. When she's done, she lowers the rifle, and looks over at me. "This is the way a real gunfight happens. Whoever's slow on the draw, dies."

I nod in agreement...she's right, of course, and it's something I'll have to learn. But there's something I want to try. "Give me a sidearm," I tell her.

Miranda looks at me skeptically. "The Elkoss Combine Lancer-pattern rifle is the most basic field weapon available. Sidearms barely even rate next to it."

"Just...just give me a pistol, okay? One with a set of iron sights."

"Knock yourself out." Miranda heads over to the cabinet, stows the Avenger - Lancer, I correct myself, it wasn't actually called the Avenger until they manufactured the model with thermal clips - and produces a sidearm. Since I now know what to look for, I have a much easier time actually unfolding the thing. Like the M-8, it's a familiar sight. Molded grip, fully-fashioned handguard, and a long top rail...it looks a lot like the Carnifex or Paladin heavy pistols, but it feels a lot lighter. Surprisingly light, for something its size, actually. The overall gun is longer than most pistols I've ever seen, with what looks like a seven inch barrel or so.

"Karpov Mk. VII general defense pistol," Miranda explains. "Heat sink has enough capacity for sixteen shots before needing to vent. Rosenkov produces a number of upgrade parts for it that are easily available."

The pistol feels hefty enough to actually swing as a melee weapon if need be, which surprises me considering how flimsy the frame looks and feels. Almost like the cheap plastic of airsoft guns back home, but knowing the Mass Effect universe, it's probably sturdier than carbon fiber. To my great relief, there are actual iron sights on top of the gun. I flip them up, startling Miranda - she probably didn't expect me to actually use these archaic targeting implements in the age of VI-assisted aiming - but looking through them makes the unfamiliar gun feel a lot more like something I'm used to.

I take my time lining up the first target and let fly a round. The pistol bucks a lot less than the pistols from home I'm used to, and the projectile flies true, punching a hole in the head of my target. I switch targets smoothly the way I was taught at the range, firing a single round per target. By the time I'm finished and let the pistol vent, Miranda looks...well, not impressed, but at least appeased that I'm not a completely lost cause with firearms.

"Well, it appears you have _some_ useful skills. Maybe we can make this work, after all."

Yeah, maybe we can.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note: **And we're up for chapter 3! Now the ride really begins...**  
**

**Chapter Three**

The months pass by in a bit of a blur between time spent at the shooting range and physical conditioning, not to mention all the actual theory of infiltration and covert ops, and me catching up on the Mass Effect tech. The first time Miranda realized I had no clue how to work half the technology available to them, she almost didn't believe me. I swear, she was ready to biotically throw my ass out the window of the 31st floor apartment we share, but when she realized I was actually serious...well, I think it made her more inclined to actually believe I have no idea how or why I'm here. Though I haven't yet told her that by _here _I mean this particular universe, rather than civilized space.

Either that, or she thinks I'm a complete idiot.

Anyway, I've learned that Mass Effect has some crazy medical tech. I mean, it was one thing to see medi-gel in the game. I took it with a grain of salt as something of a potion, considering Bioware's history with fantasy games, but the ease with which the clinic Miranda took me to had my asthma and my eyes fixed was really something else. I'm almost blind without my glasses, or, well, I used to be. Miranda actually asked me about them.

T

"Why're you still wearing those? They went out of fashion decades ago."

I look up from my breakfast - actual breakfast this time, we did take the time to go shopping for groceries, because both Miranda and I refuse to live off ration bars for any longer than we absolutely have to (it's one of the few things we agree on) - at her sudden question. "My glasses?"

"Yes."

"I kind of need them to see. I'm near-sighted. Really near-sighted, actually."

"Really?" There's that hint of suspicion from her again that I've gotten used to seeing whenever something just doesn't seem to line up to make her question where I came from. "It's a rather simple and affordable fix. I'm surprised that your parents never took care of it when you were a child."

And there's the usual not-so-subtle dig for information, which I've _also_ grown quite used to by now. It's gotten to be a bit of a familiar game between us over the past three months. She'll ask something, hinting subtly or not-so-subtly, trying to get me to spill something. And I'll always deflect with some non-sequitur. I almost fell for it in the beginning, in fact, if I hadn't know what Miranda was like from the games, I probably would've said something I shouldn't have.

"They make it hard to sight through a scope."

Miranda shrugs at my dismissal of her question, then nods in acknowledgement of my statement. "True enough. There's a clinic on the upper wards. I'll take you there this afternoon, I'm sure they can find some time in their schedule to realign your cornea."

"Cool." And it really is. I mean, Lasik is one thing, but that's kind of a brute-force way of doing things. Actually realigning the cornea by the use of tiny mass effect feels? Now _that_'s borderline awesome.

"You'll also be undergoing gene therapy there for a few issues I noticed from your biometrics and medical scans. Asthma, really?" Miranda quirks an eyebrow in that manner of hers that's half exasperated and half amused.

"Hey, it's never been an issue before."

"True, but I don't want you watching my back, only to reach for an inhaler in the middle of a firefight."

Actually, that's quite the amusing image, now that I think about it. Picture a western quick-draw duel...dramatic music, the noon sun high above. Tumbleweeds and all...and suddenly, I pull an inhaler instead of the gun. It's kind of nice that she thinks I'll be in a firefight with her. Not the actual firefight part, but that maybe she's starting to trust me enough to let me watch her back if we _were_ in a firefight. "So...gene therapy?"

If there's one thing I've learned lately about the Mass Effect 'verse's medical tech is that they can do a lot with retroactive gene therapy. Like, fix genetic diseases, or enhance organ performance. It's almost unbelievable, because their medical tech is better than anything I ever watched on Star Trek. Hell, even bacta doesn't come close!

"Yes." Miranda nods in confirmation. "You'll be out for an hour or so while your eyes are fixed. The gene therapy can be done while you're awake, but you'll have to remain a few hours for monitoring."

"You're not going to use the time I'm under to stick some crazy cybernetics and control chips in me, are you?"

"I don't think they make enough implants to fix what's wrong with you," Miranda says easily. That's another change I've noticed over the past months. We've been getting along easier, and she has an absolutely _wicked_ sense of humor. It's strange, because it was never that apparent in the games, but then again, I guess a galaxy-wide war for the survival of all sentient life changes you.

Personally, I'm just glad I don't have to deal with the Ice Queen 24/7 anymore. It's been a gradual process, and I think it started with the fact that Miranda thought me too incompetent to be a major threat. To be honest, my knowledge of the Mass Effect universe was all I had. I wouldn't say she likes me, but I think she's starting to see me as more than just a nuisance.

It might also have something to do with the fact that I'm mostly keeping out of her way and doing as I'm told. My downtime's usually spent researching or reading up on stuff. I think it's the engineer in me, but the Mass Effect tech surprisingly makes quite a bit of sense...apart from the existence of eezo, naturally. But once you buy into that, it all works out. And don't even get me started on the omni-tool. I mean, seriously, the damn thing's like a smartphone with integrated Swiss army knife with french fries and a coke.

"I didn't hurt your limited mental faculties with that, did I?" Miranda asks. Oops, apparently I drifted off in thought again.

"Nah. Your wit would have to have a cutting edge for that," I shoot back. It's not a perfect comeback...okay, so I'm not the wittiest guy around, sue me. But it gets a tiny chuckle out of her. Maybe she's actually starting to respect me a little for sticking it out. I mean, it's not been easy by any means. A crash course in everything under the sun from shooting to stamina training to re-learning an entirely new field of physics in eight months? Miranda's told me the _Normandy_ is scheduled to depart for her shakedown cruise in June 2283, which doesn't leave us with a lot of time. Still, considering everything that's got to be done, it feels a lot like boot camp and tech-camp all rolled into one neat little vacation package.

"So, when do we leave for the clinic?" I ask her.

She doesn't even need to consult her omni-tool to remember her itinerary for the day. Damn eidetic memory. "We'll go after we break for lunch. I've got a few errands to run in the lower wards while you're out of commission, and I'll pick you up afterwards."

"Sounds good to me." I think she's happy to go out on assignment again, even if it's just a brief hop over to the lower wards. Can't have been easy for someone like her to be stuck training me and watching to see if I'm a security threat for the past couple of months. It's taken all of her time, and she's not had any field assignment since the day I met her.

I finished my omelet - yes, I can cook, and yes, Miranda can cook. Considering her occupation though, it's not surprising that she lets me do most of the cooking. It's not like she'd poison us both, she's actually pretty good at it, but she just doesn't seem the type to have the patience for the food. Oh, don't get me wrong, where I can easily imagine Shepard (female Shepard, Spacer, and Sole Survivor, as I found out by wheedling the information out of Miranda) living off ration bars because she wants to and doesn't care for anything else, Miranda can actually appreciate a good meal, or an expensive, extravagant meal. She just doesn't want to have to _cook_ said expensive, extravagant meal.

"So," I say her as I drain my glass of ploonik juice. It's a tart, surprisingly bitter fruit from the elcor homeworld of Dekuuna that, when pressed and turned into juice is a relatively popular drink with the children on the Citadel for some reason. Hell if I know why, back home kids just seem to like sweet tasting stuff.

"Get to the range, I'll meet you there in ten minutes." Miranda never takes her eyes off the datapad as she continues to eat her breakfast. Yet another of our little routines; after she was sure I could handle being on the range without accidentally blowing my foot off or something, Miranda actually let me go on and start training by myself while she took care of, well, I have no idea what _exactly_ she's taking care of while I'm working on stuff, but I'm sure she's got stuff to do. Mostly I tinker with the gun she gave me till she gets there, anyway.

I give her a brief nod, knowing that even though it doesn't seem like it, she'll see it out of her peripheral vision, and head past her through the office to the shooting range and armory. It's actually more than that - there's a tech lab next door that I've been studying up on tech in, complete with everything an aspiring Cerberus field operative needs to practice. And yes, that includes mock locks to hack, data files to decrypt, and other miscellaneous parts of random equipment to fix, upgrade, or otherwise modify to do things they weren't supposed to.

Like that one plasma flow regulator that Miranda somehow managed to turn into an explosive device for one of her demonstrations. To this day I have no idea how the hell she did it. Yeah, like I said...we've been busy.

The lights on the shooting range come on automatically as I enter the hall, and I make a beeline for the work bench in the corner. It looks a lot like the shuttle bay of the SR2 after the Alliance refit for Mass Effect 3, actually. Only, instead of shuttles hanging in front of the center consoles and armory lockers, there's targets.

My pistol's still on the table where I left it last night. Ever since I first fired it, I've sort of kept using it to improve my shooting, unless Miranda has me working on specific weapons, and it's sort of become my baby. I've started scouring the extranet for mods for the damn thing, and even manufactured some myself using the tech lab's rapid prototyping printers. It was an interesting exercise in Mass Effect tech, actually. Miranda still jokes about it whenever she sees the gun, telling me it's got way too much crap on it to be useful in a firefight, but honestly, all I stuck on there were a larger heat sink, a barrel extension complete with large-bore barrel and the appropriate firing mechanism, an extendable 4x scope, and an actual firing selector.

...Okay, so maybe I did go a bit overboard. The scope wasn't exactly necessary. But hey, the thing's a beast now, and it fires accurately enough me for to actually be able to use the scope! It's also getting a bit on the heavy side. Probably closer to an SMG in size, now that I think about it, but it's still the only gun I can fire reliably with any sort of accuracy and speed. Turns out full auto isn't my thing, after all, so after a few weeks of just basic familiarization with assault rifles, Miranda decided to drop a sniper rifle in my hands and put me on fire support. At least, most of the time I'll be farther away from the shooting this way, which is less likely to get me killed if I'm slow on switching targets.

Hey, it's easier to see what's going on around you through iron sights than squinting through a scope. And it was either that, or use a shotgun like Mississippi from _El Dorado_, because Miranda absolutely insists that a sidearm is not a primary weapon to use in a firefight. At least I can actually hit shit with my pistol unlike the guy in the movie.

T

The clinic is located in the upper wards. I probably shouldn't be surprised that it's Doctor Michel's clinic. It actually looks a lot nicer without Fist's goons tearing up the place. There never really was much opportunity to converse with Michel in the first game - or the third game, now that I think about it, because I kept Chakwas on as the _Normandy_'s CMO - so I take the chance to strike up a conversation with her as we talk about what I'm about to get done.

"It's surprising to see someone at your age come in with these issues," Michel comments in that French accent of hers.

I can only sigh at that, because Miranda's giving me a pointed look. Hey, I thought she had errands to run? "It's never been an issue, or high on my list of priorities to do."

"These procedures are usually carried out immediately after diagnosis upon birth or during the first year. You must not have available a lot of medical technology for this oversight to occur," the doctor insists, "because this is the first thing health professionals would have advised."

And yeah, she's kind of nosy. I wonder if she's still going to get a crush on Garrus? "Yeah...well..." I can't think of anything to say. Lame...

I look over at Miranda for help, but she's got her stern face on. But I can tell she's laughing inside. Her eyes have that funky little twinkle in them that tells me she's laughing at me. I just shrug and give her as innocent and oblivious smile as I can muster.

"Doctor Michel, perhaps we could get on with the procedure?" the Cerberus agent asks.

"Oh, of course, of course! Please, lie down." Michel directs me to a bed that has all sorts of machinery attached on a moving side tray. It reminds me of a dentist's chair, minus the drills.

Michel holds up an inhaler and a syringe. "Local or comprehensive anesthetic?"

I glance over at Miranda to gauge her reaction to my answer. "Frying pan," I deadpan.

"Pardon me?"

Even Miranda's looking confused by that, so I elaborate. "I prefer anesthesia by blunt force trauma." Hey, it's my go-to response for the dentist's office. I don't like being stuck with needles. Let's see if she'll take the opening I'm giving her.

"Explains why your head's on all wrong," Miranda mutters just loudly enough for me to hear, and I can't help but laugh at that. Even she cracks a smile, while Michel just looks on in confusion. All right, I think we've had enough fun at the poor doctor's expense.

"Just give me the local one. No need to completely knock me out." I point at the inhaler.

"Are you sure?" Michel looks at me a little strangely. "You do realize it will render you blind for at least two hours and you'll have to remain absolutely still. Misalignment of any sort would be terribly painful, not to mention the degradation of your vision."

"Okay, on second thought, maybe I want the complete anesthetic, after all."

"Very well." Michel consults her datapad one more time. "Also, I noticed in one of your scans that your immune system appears to have a slight disorder. It's not a genetic defect, but rather appears to have been caused by an illness of some sort while you were younger?"

Miranda looks over at me sharply. Huh, so I guess she didn't actually figure that out from reading over my medical profile. I shrug and explain to Michel. "I had acute lymphoblastic leukemia when I was ten. I'm fine now, really."

"Hmm." The good doctor taps through her datapad, apparently searching for treatment and disease information. "Ah, I see. Yes, I can tell how that would have affected your immune system. You are in remission now, yes?"

"Have been for fourteen years."

"That's good. There shouldn't be any complications, I will simply add a dosage of immuno-boosters to your therapy. We can also correct your bone marrow to remove the risk of any reoccurrence." Closing down the holographic interface, she turns to Miranda. "I can begin immediately. It won't take more than three hours to complete the optical realignment and gene therapy, but I would like to keep him after that for another hour to see if there are any adverse reactions to the gene treatment."

Miranda waves her off with a nod. "That's fine. I'll be by in a couple hours to check up on him and see if I can take him home by then."

"That would be perfect," Michel agrees.

I smirk over Doctor Michel's shoulder at Miranda. "Have fun out there!"

She shoots me a half-glare that tells me she's almost, but not quite, annoyed at me, and just shakes her head as she walks out of the clinic. I really can't help but give her a parting repartee.

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do!"

T

And that's how I ended up with perfect 20/20 vision. Without my glasses. And without allergies to anything. And utterly asthma-free. I still keep my glasses, though, even though they're completely useless pieces of transparent plexiglass now. I've just gotten used to how I look with them, I suppose, plus I got this neat plexiglass that actually shades itself to reduce glare in brightly lit conditions, so they're not completely useless. They also have some nice new features built-in that I got done by Marab at Saronis Applications over on level 26 of Zakera Ward. HUD projections, IR and image intensifying, as well as target acquisition support. Darn thing's starting to remind me of Garrus's visor, actually.

Miranda may have laughed at first when I got them back and brandished them like Duke Nukem in _Forever_, but they sure came in handy on our first field assignment. Yeah, your heard right.

_Our_ first field assignment.

T

"Sir, are you sure this is wise?" The voice is somewhat muffled but unmistakable as I walk in the front door carrying a bag of groceries in each hand.

Miranda's arguing with someone over the QEC in the office, so it's probably Tim. I can't really hear his response, but her volume speaks, well, volumes. Miranda prides herself on her self-control, and she rarely lets anything rattle her. In fact, I haven't heard her raise her voice once in the six months I've been living with her. Not even when I royally manage to screw something up, like that time I accidentally broke her favorite SMG. Thing had rounds dropping out of the barrel at zero velocity until I could fix it two days later.

But yeah, she didn't even yell at me then. And for me to be able to hear her from the front of the apartment, she must be pretty agitated, but I have the feeling I'd be better off waiting till after she's done if I value my hide. Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. I'll find out what's bothering her later, after she's done yelling at Tim. I set my purchases on the kitchen table and start sorting out the stuff for tonight's dinner.

I'm almost done sticking everything else in the fridge when Miranda finally emerges from her office. Yeah, I was right she's even _looking _frazzled. I wonder what could possibly rock Miss Genetically Perfect's world so much.

The moment she sees me, Miranda does an about-face; her expression immediately returns to neutral, and if I hadn't seen her just a second before, I wouldn't have any idea that anything was wrong except for the slight tension in her jaw.

"What's up?"

She doesn't say anything, but instead thrusts a datapad at me. "Briefing, my office, thirty minutes. Bring your sidearm," she tells me after I take it. I'm guessing the confusion must've shown on my face, or something.

And with that, she turns around and locks herself back into her office. Huh. I guess dinner's off. It doesn't take me long to stow away everything else, and curiosity finally gets to me as I sit down at the kitchen table and turn on the datapad. The orange holographic interface lights up, and the first thing that pops up is a request for a password. Say what?

Miranda never gave me no stinking password! Okay, think, what would she have used to password secure anything she gives me? She _knows_ I don't know her personal passwords, hell, _any_ important passwords, really. So she'd probably pick something I'd guess. Hm.

_Cerberus_.

Invalid password. Access denied.

Okay, try again. Maybe..._Oriana_.

Invalid password. Access denied.

What the heck? If this is some sort of test on her part, couldn't she at least let me have the instructions, or whatever's on the...datapad...wait. Test. Think. I don't know any of Cerberus's ciphers, but I think I can break them. I power up my omni-tool and call up the open-source code-breaking algorithm that I found on the extranet, of all places, the other day. Apparntly, even is still in existence under another name even in Mass Effect. The beauty of networked elements like omni-tools and datapads all tied into the cloud of the extranet is that there's _always_ a back door, as I've learned. It's why hardcopies still exist for top-secret documents.

Setting the omni-tool program to interface with the datapad, a command prompt pops up and starts scrolling lines of code as it selects, highlights, and buffers pieces of it seemingly at random. It actually reminds me of the hacking minigame from Mass Effect 2, except you don't have to do anything.

It doesn't take long for my omni-tool to quietly hum and signal that it's found a way in. I copy over the single file on the datapad and close it back down. Let's see if I can actually surprise Miss Perfect. I've got about ten minutes left before she wants me in her office, so I open up the file.

What. The. Hell.

It's a dossier.

Of a very familiar, if unwelcome, face.

It's strange seeing him without cybernetics covering most of his face and in an Alliance N7 armor, but that face is unmistakable.

Kai-fucking-Leng.

Apparently, the asshole was dishonorably discharged in '76 for murdering a krogan while on shore leave, and sentenced to twenty years in an Alliance high-security prison. Attached to the dossier is a note from Tim, plans and blueprints for the facility, and orders to remove him from Alliance custody. And we're supposed to bust him out. Huh, I didn't know that Cerberus actually had to break that psycho out of jail, but I shouldn't be surprised. Those kinds of people don't generally roam the streets, unless you're on, like, Omega, or something. Then again, I didn't really read the novels. Most of what I know about Tim and Kai Leng's history comes from browsing the Mass Effect wiki on a whim.

Well, fuck me sideways. I wonder how much it'd screw up history if Kai Leng had an unfortunate accident while trying to escape? I mean, the guy was pretty instrumental to Tim's efforts, if I recall, but I'd probably be doing the galaxy a favor. And Tim can always find himself another hit man. Hell, it might make my job easier, if I can undermine Cerberus operations and disrupt them by the time the Reapers arrive.

A glance at my omni-tool tells me I've got two minutes left, and I shut down the datapad. Shit, am I really ready for this? It's only been six months, and now I'm supposed to go along with Miranda to break into a highly fortified, maximum-security Alliance prison to break out an N7-ranked master assassin? I mean, I'll be honest here, Kai Leng scares the crap outta me. I can barely shoot straight with a rifle, hell, I've never shot at a live target before!

One minute. Guess I'll go see what Miranda wants to talk about. Deep, calming breaths. Maybe this isn't about me at all. Maybe she's going alone and is pissed that he's not sending anyone else. Maybe she doesn't agree with his plan to set a loose cannon like Kai Leng free.

She's sitting in her chair behind the desk much the way she does in her office on the SR2 in Mass Effect 2. Except, of course, this is a rather cramped office compared to her quarters on the _Normandy_, and there's an almost pensive look on her face, one that I've never really seen before. I sit down in front of her desk and slide the datapad over.

I can't help but give her a little cheek. "You could've just given me the password, you know."

Miranda looks up slowly, then gives me a wry smile. "I was hoping you'd prove incompetent enough to not hack it. I can't quite go on a mission with an incompetent partner, right?"

Shit, my first guess just _had _ to be right. "I'm guessing you're not liking this? I figure you'd be happy to get out of the Citadel for a change. Even if it means setting free a psychopathic xenophobe."

"Technically, Kai Leng is a sociopath, not a psychopath," she corrects me absently.

I shrug and lean forward. "Details. Now what's the real reason you are so reluctant to go on this? I'm gonna take a guess here and say this is what you were arguing with your boss about. I mean, if you're really worried about this Kai Leng fellow," I bite my tongue to suppress the urge to add _and you'd be right to be worried about him_, "then why not bring up your concerns with the Illusive Man? I'm sure you could find arguments against cutting him loose. I mean, he's probably going to be as much a threat to humans as anyone else."

"It's not Kai Leng I'm worried about. The Illusive Man has plans for him." Miranda lets out a tiny sigh and calls up a schematic of a space station on her desk's holo display. "This is _Bastion_, located in the Exodus Cluster, on the border of Alliance space and the Attican Traverse. It's a maximum-security prison facility for highly dangerous and violent criminals. Security systems are state-of-the-art, and the personnel is hand-drawn from a cadre of N5 and above soldiers, rotated out every three months. The crew complement numbers almost three thousand, most of whom are guards. The station is unguarded in space, and has no evacuation ships. Supply vessels come in under heavy armed escort, with orders to vaporize the station or emerging ships if they have been captured."

You know, I'm kind of getting a flashback to Jack's recruitment mission here. Floating max-sec prison station in the middle of nowhere? Check. Crazy security and number of guards? Check. Orders to kill everything that moves if a prisoner so much as sneezes without permission? Check. Well, looks like this is gonna be a doozy. Especially since I doubt they're going to just let Tim buy out Leng and let us waltz in to pick him up. Even if they did, look how _that_ turned out for Shepard.

"And...we're going in there?" I'm pretty sure my incredulousness came across loud and clear, considering the way Miranda gives me a brief, very brief, look of disapproval.

"Yes. Our orders are to infiltrate the facility and extract Kai Leng by any means necessary." Her expression softens a bit. "I don't like this any more than you do. To be honest, I don't think you're ready for wetwork. And something like _this_? Breaking into max-sec? What's the Illusive Man thinking?"

I just shrug and say the first thing that comes to mind. "Hey, maybe he wants to get rid of me. It'd be easy to just write me off as a mission casualty."

"Maybe, but if he really wanted you to disappear, there are quicker and easier ways to go about it."

I should've expected that from her. Ever the consummate professional, eh, Miranda? "Are you serious?" is all I can muster instead. I mean, really? What the fuck? I can understand him sending Miranda, what with her being a great operative and all, but..._me_? Seriously? I've got to fight down the urge to ask Miranda just what the hell is in those cigarettes Tim is smoking all the time, because he appears to have gone completely delusional.

"Completely. I've tried getting him to assign me a more seasoned field operative, but he insists that this will be your...trial by fire, so to speak. A final test before your assignment to the _Normandy_."

"I see." So that's how he wants to play it. I haven't actually let slip anything over the past months that would be of any use to him, or that he didn't already know. I _know_ he's interested in finding out _how_ I know, and he's given Miranda orders to find out, but I've been careful. And now he's going to use this as a test to see if the time Miranda's spent training me was worth it. I'm under no illusions that I can take on Tim in a galactic game of intrigue, but at the very least I can throw him for so many loops, he'll be dizzy by the time Shepard comes around to shut him down for good.

Miranda seems to have come to the same conclusion. "It's not ideal, but you have the training. Let's hope your lack of experience isn't going to get us both killed."

"There's one thing I want to say." I refuse to do more damage than absolutely necessary. Those Alliance soldiers are there doing their jobs, doing a _necessary _job. Plus, if I can avoid having to shoot anyone as long as possible, that's a plus.

"We find the least bloody way in and out. If we get to Leng and he wants to go on a murdering spree, or make our escape in any way more difficult than it needs to be, I'm putting a bullet in his skull."

Miranda smirks at that, some of her arrogant air restored. "That is assuming you could even hit him. Even unarmed, Kai Leng is a formidable opponent. His N7 designation isn't for nothing, you know."

I smirk right back at her. "Then let's make sure nothing goes wrong with our plan."

And that's what it is. _Our_ plan.

_Our_ op.

I'm really doing this.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note: **Let's see what kind of trouble I can get myself into, now, shall we? Hehehe...*cue evil laughter #73***  
**

**Chapter Four**

Fortunately, Tim's "request" that we liberate Kai Leng wasn't tied to any sort of time frame, so we could take our time planning. By good fortune - though I wouldn't put it past him to have this timed and planned out exactly - there was a supply ship that left not too long after Miranda received the order. After the crew suffered an unfortunate sudden, and non-lethal, onset of food poisoning (of the dextro-amino kind) Miranda and I, being the ever-helpful colleagues to the freighter pilots that we are, fake credentials and all, offered to take their run, instead.

Which is how I'm now sitting in the cockpit of a supply freighter, wearing minimal armor and only my sidearm, and watching the prison facility get progressively larger in the window. It looks kind of like an oblong cylinder with a fat ring along the middle. If someone took Deep Space 9, cut off the pylons, and stretched the inner ring into a tube, that's what _Bastion_ would look like. And we're on approach to dock with the outer ring. All this while a whole squadron of Alliance frigates, corvettes, and assault craft are waiting behind us to blow us to pieces at the smallest sign of anything off from their usual routine. And all the while, I can only think about one thing.

How the fuck does Miranda stay so calm?

She's the picture of relaxation, sitting there in the pilot's chair, her feet propped up on the console, relishing her persona as an easy-going, somewhat lackadaisical freighter pilot. Occasionally, she'll answer the comm, provide the proper authorization codes - courtesy of Tim, I reckon - and other than that, she could be almost asleep. It's really strange to see her act like this. I mean, I know it's a cover, but either she's a _really_ good actress, or what we're about to do really doesn't faze her. And I've never seen her this..._relaxed_.

She never let her guard down in the game, and she certainly hasn't with me. Professional distance and all that. But whenever there's comm traffic that has us both on the mic, she's easy-going, friendly, hell, even funny. She's _laughing_, for crying out loud! Or..she was, earlier, at some crass joke that one of our Alliance escort pilots told. I swear, the guy must've been channeling Joker, or something, but he got an honest-to-god laugh out of her, and I don't think it was faked. It's an interesting thought, but maybe this sort of undercover work is some kind of...of emotional outlet for her, a chance to cut loose and be someone other than her tightly-wound, highly professional Cerberus operative persona.

It makes some sort of twisted, sad sense, actually, what with her childhood growing up and all.

The freighter's almost at the docking bay. Our plan is pretty simple; impersonate the freighter crew, get on board the station, slip away while they're unloading the boat, sabotage the security systems, grab Kai Leng, and haul his man-killing ass out of here back onto the ship. Riiiight, there's absolutely _nothing_ that could go wrong with that plan. I mean, why would there be?

It just relies on our sabotage of the shipping cranes in the cargo bay remaining undetected, us moving fast enough to get to the security offices, disable the alarms, sentry guns, cameras, and whatnot, get us one murderous psycho, and haul ass back to the ship before they're done unloading so we can take back off as if nothing had happened. No sweat. At all.

Why did I agree to do this again, instead of telling Mr. Jack Harper that he can stick his brilliant plans where the sun don't shine?

Oh, right. I need him to get me aboard the _Normandy_. Shit. There's a dull clank as the docking clamps hit the hull, and Miranda confirms docking and unloading procedures over the comm. The crew of the freighter is never supposed to leave the ship or come into direct contact with the station's crew, so we're good to sneak out after everything is confirmed and set, and unloading has begun.

Which is right now. Miranda's already up and checking her gun. "You ready?" she asks.

We're about to climb through the freighter's auxiliary maintenance ducts to a hull plate just below the docking clamp, free-fall into the docking clamp, and then we're going to crawl through the docking clamp into the station proper. Where we'll proceed to infiltrate a station full of N5 and above soldiers to free a psycho who's just as likely to kill us as the enemy. And we're supposed to do all that while armed with just a pair of pistols. Am I ready?

Time to get my Mass Effect groove on. I slide my glasses on in the best impression of Horatio Caine that I can muster, and drawl:

"Let's roll."

T

If anyone ever tells you secret agent spy work like you see in Mission: Impossible is glamorous and fun, tell them to go take a hike. Because it's not. Climbing through maintenance shafts that are generally only used by VI-controlled maintenance bots is _not_ fun. Especially not if the ducts are so small you're reduced to crawling on your hands and feet, and have to be careful to avoid banging into stuff.

It's really slow, really dusty progress. All the while there's a little timer on our omni-tools, ticking down the minutes until the station's crew is done unloading. And let me tell you, despite us sabotaging what we could in the freighter's cargo compartment without it being obvious, it's not a long timer. And it's a large station. At least Miranda knows where she's going...I hope.

And all this in the name of breaking out a violent sociopath. Did I mention already what a shitty idea I think this is?

Miranda halts before me, then backs up slightly. There's no room to signal anything, so my omni-tool lights up as she shoots me a message. I tap her shoulder in confirmation, then set about looking for an egress hatch to these maintenance ducts we're in. Seriously, what is it with maintenance ducts being tiny? The jeffries tubes in Star Trek, the wiring trays in Firefly...why doesn't _anyone_ think to build passages that are supposed to be used to _maintain_ the ship, station, or whatever, like, _large enough for someone to comfortably walk through and work in_?

I mean, this thing's cluttered to hell and back with wire trays, cabling, switches, relays, fuse boxes...well, they're not really fuse boxes, but they look like fuse boxes from home. I'm pretty sure if I were to just start cutting random wires, I could do some serious damage to the station that wouldn't be found for a while. Then again, I might just as well electrocute myself.

There's a little maintenance hatch we passed a couple of feet back, so I shuffle backwards while Miranda turns around. We don't talk, a little type-chat on our omni-tools is our only communication, as we are right next to bulkheads in inhabited areas. It's a slow process - have you ever tried crawling backwards on all fours without making a sound? And I have the easy task. Miranda must be hella flexible to be able to twist around in place.

A quick pass with my omni-tool's hacking program later, and the door lock cycles green. Miranda taps me on the shoulder and signals she wants me to go first.

Wait, what?

Yeah, she's dead serious. She nods again, and gives a silent countdown with her fingers.

Three.

Calm your breathing. There's probably no one on the other side.

Two.

I draw my pistol and flip the safety off. Better safe than sorry.

One.

_Remember all the training you did with her_. Through the door, sweep the corners, then take up position on the close side.

Without looking back, I exhale, hit the door release, and spring forward. Left corner...clear. Right...corridor...clear. Behind me, Miranda barely makes a sound as she uncoils from her crouch and takes up position opposite of me. According to the map on my omni-tool, the security office should be just down that corridor.

That long, abandoned, corridor.

Yeah, something's wrong here.

"Where are all the guards?" I hiss at Miranda.

She checks her own omni-tool, which now has a bioscan overlay on top of the map. There's nothing around us for at least a twenty meters, which is really odd. Especially since there should be guards at the security office.

Wait a second...I key my own omni-tool to run a bioscan, only to come up with the same result. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Not a life sign in sight within twenty meters.

Not even Miranda.

And I'm pretty sure she's alive, because she's standing next to me, looking very much alive. Shit. Either our omni-tools aren't working right, or...

"We're being jammed," she mutters back.

Well, that's just dandy. Now we're going into this blind. Three thousand on two? Hell, I doubt even a Corellian would take those odds, but now we're stuck here. "Now what?" I ask.

Miranda's completely expressionless as she turns the corner and signals me to advance with her. "We continue with the mission."

All right, so maybe Shepard's not the only one who's fond of going on suicide missions. Just to be safe, I disconnect my omni-tool from all extranet and wireless sources. Just in case they're actually tracking any unauthorized connections. If they have remote jammers in place "just in case," then I certainly wouldn't put it past them.

Ten meters down the corridor, and we haven't run into anyone. This is really starting to feel like a trap. Five meters to go to the door.

No visible cameras, and, according to my omni-tool, no monitoring devices of any sort. What the hell kind of prison is this? Three meters to the door.

Still no guards. The walls are completely bare, and aside from the maintenance hatch we came in through, the only exits are through the security office and through a sealed and locked security bulkhead on the other side of the corridor, just past the hatch. That bulkhead is the entry to the super-max security portion of the station, and Kai Leng is somewhere in there. And the only way to open that door is to get authorization from the security office.

Fortunately, the bulkhead is still closed. If it wasn't, we'd be in deep shit, because the scum of Alliance space is stuck behind there.

We're at the door. And there's still no one to greet us. Well, that's just rude. Miranda signals me to open the door again - what am I, her personal lockpick? - and I move my omni-tool towards the lock.

Wait a second, what's that sound? I move my hand away from the door before the omni-tool ever gets in contact with the holographic lock. Miranda frowns at me, but I shush her and lean towards the door. I mean, what are the odds of me hearing anything through what's probably reinforced, bullet-proof, explosion-proof steel?

What the hell is that? There's something tapping against the steel of the door. It's kind of weird, as if...huh. What the hell? I motion Miranda over, and she mirrors my pose, pressing her ear to the door with a skeptical look.

_Crash_. There it is again. _Ping_.

I give her a what-the-hell expression, and she mouths _we have no time_. All right, she wants the door open, I guess. I raise my pistol, aiming it through the door as I run my omni-tool over it, and cycle the lock.

And the scene that greets us was the _last_ thing we'd expected.

There's a _varren_ playing _ball_. With what looks like a three-inch diameter solid-steel ball bearing. The sound of the door opening startles both the varren and its handlers, presumably the guards who are supposed to be on duty. For a single, long, comic moment everything is stock still - even the varren - as we stare at each other in disbelief.

And then all hell breaks loose.

Two of the guards are being tossed around the room, courtesy of Miranda's biotics, while I line up a shot at the varren. The damn thing charges at me, barreling with its head down and fangs bared. I panic. The thing's _huge_, probably four hundred pounds or so, and I aim and pull the trigger on reflex. Three rounds stab out of my gun, straight into the varren.

You'd think that getting shot with a pistol that can put a fist-sized hole in a man would stop the thing, right? Wrong. Apparently, I just made it mad, because now it's on top of me, and I fall over backwards from its weight. My shots tore chunks out of its torso and one clipped its head, but it's still determined to take my head off. From this close, I've got a _really_ good look at its teeth. I only dimly hear the scuffle as Miranda deals with the human guards, and the whine of her pistol as I try to not become varren fodder.

Physical conditioning or not, no matter how strong I've gotten over the past couple of months, there's no way I can bench press a fully grown, quarter-ton varren off my chest, and I'm fighting to get my pistol in between it and me so I can get a shot off, but it's got my gun arm pinned between us. Suddenly, the weight of the beast lifts off me and it gives a startled yelp as it floats away. Miranda calmly pours rounds into it till it stops twitching, then offers me a hand up.

"Break time's over," she says simply. "The security team had no chance to alert anyone, but they probably will notice when they fail to check in. Either that, or internal sensors detected the gunfire."

"Are they...?" I glance over at the three men in armor who're now piled up in a corner.

Miranda just nods. "They could have identified us. The mission takes priority. Casualties are inevitable. The faster you get used to it, the better."

Shit, that's the first time I've seen a corpse. And three of them, no less. I've got to fight to swallow that lump of bile that just rose in my throat. "I don't think I'll ever get used to that. Killing people."

"Then you picked the wrong line of work." Miranda's already working the security consoles, breaching the software firewalls so she can access the station's records and figure out where Kai Leng is being held. Well, where exactly in super-max he's being held. And hopefully, how we're going to get back out of here in one piece. Because I'm suddenly not feeling very well.

My silence must've been the wrong answer, because she interrupts her work to glare at me. "Look, you _wanted_ this. You signed up for this. With all that you know about us, you have to have known that it would come down to this. Against my better instincts, I took you in, I _trained _you. I trust you, but I need to know that you have my back. I need to know that I can count on you to not hesitate to take a shot, because when it comes down to it, that sort of hesitation will get us _both_ killed. I _need_ you at my back for this, because otherwise, we're not getting out of here alive."

And that's what it comes down to. I fucking knew what I was getting myself into, but I never really fully thought it through. The reality of it never really sank in. Part of me thought it would be like it was in the games. Clinical, kind of...unreal. But it's not. I can even _smell_ the blood on the ground. I can smell the cordite from our fired guns. And it's really fucking scary.

Not to mention that these are _people_ we're shooting at. _People_. We're shooting to kill...and, well, so are they. But they're soldiers. Even Miranda is one. But I'm not. And what's more, these soldiers did nothing wrong. They're not traitors, they don't work with Saren, they're not indoctrinated. They're just doing their fucking _jobs_.

It's ironic. The people who _should_ be getting shot - and who will be, once Shepard starts on her rampage through Cerberus operations in a couple weeks - are the people I'm working with. But I'm in it now, and I need their help. I need _Miranda's_ help. And, to be honest, Miranda's just doing her job, too, and, in some twisted way, she's doing what she thinks is right for humanity. It's too late to back out now.

I nod slowly and move over to the door to stand guard while she hacks the system. Apparently, that's a good enough answer for her, because she gets back to work, as well. Miranda may let me handle a lot of tech stuff, but she's no slouch. Fact that's proven when, not three minutes after she started her hack, she's got what she wanted.

"Security codes to get us into the super-max ward, transponders to fool the internal sensors into believing we're guards, and a direct tie-in to the station's security systems," she informs me. A quick swipe of her omni-tool later, and mine chirps in acknowledgement of the new software package.

"So what's our plan? Waltz in there pretending to be guards and just unlock the door?"

"Yeah." Miranda quickly strips one of the dead soldiers of his submachine gun.

Well, I guess it _is_ going to be just that easy. We head out of the security offices at a brisk pace, something for which I'm grateful. I don't want to stay in there with those corpses any longer than I have to. And now we don't have to be worried about being monitored by internal sensors...I hope. Unless they've got our omni-tools hacked from the get-go. Which would be bad.

Yeah, I'm not thinking about that. The door to super-max cycles open at Miranda's command. It's a really hefty bulkhead door, one that could probably stand up to a shuttle hitting it without much of a dent, and as such, it takes a while to retract. Well, it looks like those codes are good. Beyond them lies something that looks very similar to _Purgatory_. Individual, isolated cell blocks that surround a central hub, connected to the master bulkhead that we just passed through via a single bridge. It actually sort of looks like a donut, with the prisoners kept along a circle in the center, separated from the rest of the station by empty space. A glance down confirms what I thought: yep, the super-max cell blocks are suspended in thin air by mass-effect fields. Man, the Alliance sure doesn't do things half way.

Unlike _Purgatory_, though, the cells aren't kept separated, and no one's in actual cryogenic suspension. It's probably some form of humane treatment for these criminals so that they're not kept in isolation all the time. Although that does make me wonder how the guards keep them from rioting or killing each other. On second thought, maybe the guards don't really care if they do. There's very few guards here, which makes sense.

If there's a riot or a breakout attempt, all they have to do is jettison the bridge we're currently walking across, and there's no way for the prisoners to go unless they can fly. And I'm sure the Alliance even thought about that eventuality. According to the schematics of the station we got from Tim, we're pretty close to the outer edge of the station's superstructure. Anyone tries to break out, they probably vent this entire section to space, or something. Or blast in here with whatever ships are currently around.

I really hope that's the plan, despite how callous it sounds. Because the alternative is that the Alliance soldiers on the station have orders to just scuttle the entire damn place in case of an emergency, which doesn't really bear thinking about.

Although, the lack of guards is making sneaking in here really dang easy, so I'm not complaining about that. But being stuck here if somehow all these prisoners get out, without backup? Yeah, that's kind of a creepy thought. We pass into the central hub, which looks like something of a common area. They probably let the inmates out once a day or so. Or maybe for meals. Surprisingly, there's not really a lot of screaming and shouting going on behind the cell doors.

It's really rather civil in here, actually. I mean, I can't really tell what's going on in each cell, because the doors are solid with the exception of a little monitoring screen that can be turned on, but there's no yelling and no fighting. I think I can even hear some civil conversation going on, actually. Huh. Who would've thought that violent prisoners would actually get along?

Miranda seems to know where she's going, so I just follow her down into one cell block as she heads off from the hub. We take an elevator up three floors, and step out into a gantry that overlooks the empty space between the cells and the inside wall of the station. Keeping the cells to our right, Miranda continues to stride towards her destination.

"This is it?" The door looks just like all the others.

Miranda flips the switch on the monitor, and an inside view of the cell from one of the cameras fills the screen. Yep, that's Kai Leng, all right. The bastard's got fewer cybernetics than I remember from the games, and he's sitting still on the bed. Meditating or something.

I look from the screen to Miranda. "Does he know we're coming?"

"No."

Okay...what?

"Well, let's unlock the door, then. And hope he doesn't kill us when he sees us." I gesture for her to go first. I've got no intention of going up against even an unarmed Kai Leng in an enclosed space first. Ladies first, right? Besides, it's _her_ boss who wants this psycho bailed out.

"I can't. The security office didn't have the clearance codes to override the system. The station doesn't even have a VI for security purposes. Too easy to hack or get caught in a logic bomb." Miranda fiddles with her omni-tool. "The station runs a completely self-contained physical circuit that operates the doors. Nothing to hack, and if it's sabotaged, the doors remain shut until it can be fixed."

"So how do we open it?" I mean, if she wants to turn around now and walk out of here, I'd be totally cool with that. I really would.

Miranda reaches for her belt and attaches something rectangular to the door, then bangs a short series of signals against it. Hey, I think that's Morse code. I scrounge up what little I remember of it, but before I can translate, I catch sight of what she's got in her hand as she backs away.

A detonator.

What the fuck?

"We're out of time. Get back." Miranda pulls me back a couple of meters, then triggers the device in her hands. The breaching charge she attached to the door lights with a dull thud that rattles my bones, and the back-blast from the shaped charge throws debris all over the gantry in front of us. Holy shit in a handbasket...

Right then, alarms start blaring. Figures her little stunt tripped all sorts of alarms. Miranda doesn't seem too concerned with them, though, as she biotically pushes the smoke away, her gun pointed right at Kai Leng as he stands there in the middle of the new hole in his door. Smart girl. She may work for Tim, but she doesn't trust Kai Leng. At least, I don't think she does.

As for the man himself, he's got this totally blank, creepy expression on his face. His eyes are...well, I've never seen anything like it before, but I'd wager this is what they mean when people say someone's eyes are dead. They're completely still, and there's this cold, unfeeling aura around him that just screams that he doesn't give a shit whether you live or die.

"You're my exit strategy?" he asks in complete monotone.

Miranda gives a curt nod. "We're in need of your services."

"You and the whelp?"

Hey, I take offense at that! But before I can say anything, Miranda cuts me off. Probably a good thing, too, because I got no idea what to say back to a killer like Kai Leng without getting myself killed. "We're part of an operations. Details will follow. Your services will be compensated. Right now our window for escape is closing. I'll answer your questions once we're out of here."

"Not to cut short the festivities, but we've got a stationwide alarm going off. We should probably get going," I tell them. Miranda nods, Kai Leng just sneers, and we're off.

Much to my surprise, the elevator still works. I mean, I would've thought that if there's a problem in the cell block, transportation would be the first thing to be shut off to prevent prisoners from moving quickly?

The reason for that actually becomes apparent when we get to the main hub. Or rather, what we see on the other side of the hub across the bridge. I can't really see that far out - the bridge in is about a hundred or so meters long - but what I _can_ see clearly is the two-dozen red dots from sniper rifles looking for targets from the other side. Oh fuck.

The three of us quickly take cover next to the doorway before we're seen. The soldiers on the other side are good, they're not firing aimlessly, and they're not talking. Probably waiting for us to make a move and then just shoot us down. Shit, this reminds me way too much of the position Garrus was in on Omega. Or will be in. Whatever. Only this time, I'm making the run towards the fortified position on the other side against more than one sniper, and they're not friendly.

"Any ideas?" I ask Miranda as I toggle the zoom on my shades and risk a peek around the corner. Yeah, those snipers are good. I can barely see the tops of their scopes and a barrel or two.

"This is the only way in and out," Miranda answers calmly.

I point at her SMG. "Well, we ain't fighting our way out of this." I mean, that thing is the only real weapon we've got. That and two pistols. Fat lot of good that'll do us against twenty-odd sniper rifles plus whatever else they got.

And all this time, the countdown on our exit is ticking. Actually, it probably just got even shorter, because it won't be long until they realize that this is related to the supply ship that just docked. Or maybe we got lucky and this is just a precaution, and they think it's a malfunction, or something.

In any case, we've got to get out of here. Too bad the only way out is blocked by a veritable forest of rifles. Plus, if they jettison the bridge, we're _really _trapped here. They can just wait us out, or turn off the mass effect fields holding this thing in place, and...

Wait. Mass effect fields. Holding us in place.

"You got another shaped charge?" I ask Miranda.

She hands me one, complete with detonator. "What are you thinking of?"

I walk over to the other side of the hub, careful to stay out of view of the snipers and look for the bulkhead closest to the outside. We've got to move quickly, I'm guessing they'll be finding the mess we left at the security office soon and turn surveillance back on. "How far do you reckon it's down to the ground?"

I've got to admit, if she's curious, she doesn't really show it. "From here? Three hundred meters."

"That's what I thought." Here seems like a good spot. Nothing but what looks like sheet metal between us and the outside. I stick the explosive to it and back up. "Your biotics can't float us all the way down. Or across. But there's something else in this station that _can_."

It's a crazy idea, I know. But it looks like what I've got in mind is finally dawning on her. "We drop through the low-gravity mass effect tunnel that's holding this structure in place."

"Yeah. It's going to be a long trip back to the ship, but at least we'll be out of this damn death trap waiting to happen." I hit the trigger, and the charge blasts a neat man-sized hole right through the metal. I turn to Kai Leng. "Once we're out of here and in the station, we're going to have to make a run for it if we don't want to get blown out of space by the Alliance fleet waiting out there. You do _anything_ to slow us down, I'm leaving you behind. Got me?"

There's that sneer again that just tells me he isn't even taking me seriously. I don't really give a shit if he believes me or not. We've got a chance to get out of here without actually having to fight our way out - or, at least, with minimal fighting. If he jeopardizes that just for the fun of killing people, then I'm shoving my pistol up his ass sideways. Without a word, he jumps out of the hole in the wall I just made.

Miranda just stares at me for a moment. "Can I trust you not to do anything stupid?" she asks, then jumps after him without waiting for my answer. Whatever.

I take a long look down to the ground and the increasingly tiny forms of my team mate and one psycho. I never liked heights. Hell, I hate bungee jumping. Never been parasailing, or parachuting, either. Can't believe now I'm actually going to jump down three hundred plus meters without a damn chute. Well, shit. Here goes.

I jump.

Shitshitshitshitshit, why did I think this was a good idea? The air rushes past me for a second before the mass effect fields compensate and slow my descent. It's still going down at an appreciable pace, but I doubt I'd break anything hitting the ground at this speed. Once you get used to it, it's actually quite...fun.

No, seriously. The adrenaline is probably a part of it, but knowing that I'm not going to end up as a red smear on the ground also helps. A lot. The fall takes a good while. Hey, dropping three hundred meters in the equivalent of the Moon's gravity isn't exactly speedy going. Which was kind of the point.

This is actually really messed up. I mean, now that I've got some time to think about it, we're about to make a break for it through a station full of guards to a ship in the docking bay we were never even supposed to have left. And then we have to get away scot-free before either the station personnel or the fleet outside get any idea that we had anything to do with this.

And that's not even the fucked up part. Not half an hour ago I watched - well, heard, I was too busy trying not to get eaten - Miranda kill three men in cold blood. No remorse, no regret, other than "it had to be done." It's really sobering. I mean, I knew she was cold, ruthless, and calculating, but she was never like _this_ while training me. And aside from her morals, is she really that different from Kai Leng? Shit, what the fuck did I get myself into? Maybe I should've just stayed home. Or, well, on the Citadel. Find a nice, safe job at Saronis's or something.

I mean, I wouldn't exactly say we're _friends_, or anything, but Miranda's gotten friendlier with me. I know there's a _person_ somewhere behind that professional facade of hers, and it's really hard to reconcile that with the person who just shot three unconscious men. Not to mention that at some point _I'll_ probably have to shoot at them, too.

Fuck, I almost missed the landing. Tuck into a compact crouch, bend your knees to absorb the impact, and stick the landing. It's a bit harder than Miranda's, but it'll do. The moment she's on the ground she's already consulting her omni-tool for the quickest route back to the docking bay.

"This way."

I follow her down a deserted corridor - seriously, what is it with this station and guards not being in corridors? I'm not complaining but it makes me wonder if there's an ambush lurking around the next corner. We sneak in and out of the maintenance shafts where we can, but ultimately, we don't have the time to spend crawling through ductwork. And even though we have to hide from the occasional patrol, we're far enough away from the super-max cell block that there's few enough guards around here. They probably all rushed towards super-max when the second charge went off.

And there's the loading bay. Our original exit strategy had us getting back aboard via the same way we got on, the maintenance shafts in the docking arm. But our time's up, and they're almost done emptying our cargo bay and refueling the ship. There's a hatch to the maintenance shafts not too far away, no more than ten meters, but now thanks to the alert, there's guards next to it. And then the intercom comes alive with chatter.

"Security office has been compromised, expect intruders to have access to internal security and monitoring systems. All stations, alert condition delta. Repeat, alert condition delta. Alerting Alliance naval vessels in the vicinity of possible Omega protocol."

Yeah, that's really bad news. There's one thing that really stood out to me when reading over Tim's information on _Bastion_, which was neatly labeled simply as The Omega Protocol. That's the security measures to be taken in case of a severe incursion into the station that has compromised its internal security. You know how I said that the Alliance had orders to blast this place if worst comes to worse? Yeah. That just happened.

Fuck.

We're _officially_ out of time. By now they're probably locking down the ship and prepping the fleet to intercept any outgoing transports. I look over at Miranda, and the look in her eyes tells me she knows it, too.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

"We need to take out the guards at the control tower, release the docking clamps, and get to the ship," Miranda orders as she takes in the situation.

Sounds like a good plan in theory, with two notable exceptions of varying difficulties. One, the tower is pretty well defended, but we can get around that. Two, and more importantly, I tell her, "There's an entire fleet out there that by now is just waiting to blast us to pieces the moment we take off!"

She glares at me, before pushing past, cocking her appropriated SMG. "It's our only way off this base."

Kai Leng walks after her, something of a feral grin on his face. Figures the guy would look forward to killing people. "If you don't have the stomach for it, pussyfoot, let us do all the killing while you sit here and prep the ship for launch."

My stomach turns at the thought of cutting Kai Leng loose at the guards here, but Miranda's right. This is our only way off the station. We can worry about the fleet later, but if we don't get off now, we're as good as dead. All right, then. I extend my pistol and vent the heat sink before taking off after Miranda. She's already hurling guards aside, her SMG stuttering out rounds. Kai Leng is right behind her, not even needing any incentive to go on a killing rampage as he tears through fucking armored N5 soldiers with his _fucking bare hands_.

I split off from them as we get close to the docking collar. Miranda shoots me a brief glance, and I nod, our agreement unspoken. She'll take Kai Leng with her to the control tower while I clear the ship. I carefully sweep the corners around the airlock like I've been taught. There's no one on the outside, so I cycle the airlock.

I don't know who's more surprised - me, or the soldier on the other side of the airlock. My best guess is he heard the alarm and was coming off from a sweep of the ship. It doesn't really matter. He reaches for his weapon, the look on his face telling me that he knows he's not going to reach it in time, and I close my eyes as I pull the trigger on my pistol.

The whine of the shot is followed by a dull thud as the body hits the ground. Shit. I just shot someone. "We're in. Initiating hack." Miranda's voice crackles over my comm. She's no longer worried about radio silence. Guess that's my cue to speed it up.

There's nothing I can do about what I just did right now. I shove the sickening feeling in my stomach aside and rush through the ship, hastily checking for more unwanted passengers. There are none. I reach the cockpit and begin the startup procedure. A flip of a switch closes the cargo bay doors, and then all I can do is wait for Miranda to undo the docking clamps and get back aboard while the engines warm up.

"I'm in." I can hear Kai Leng fighting in the background. I'm guessing he picked up a gun somewhere along the way, because I can hear it over Miranda's voice. "Docking clamps disengaged. We're on our way back."

There's a brief pause, and then her voice is back. "Shit. Leng, back to the ship, _now_! Leng!"

He doesn't seem to reply, because her next few words are some pretty nasty curses.

"What's going on over there? Miranda?" I call into my comm.

"...off...fucking killing spree...need...wait for...ship."

The hell? "Miranda, come in. Miranda!"

No dice. The comm's dead, and all I get is static. Shit. Looks like they turned the jammers back on. Probably caused by the system registering the hack. What the fuck is Kai Leng doing?

No, scratch that. What is he _thinking_? The engines are primed and warmed up by now. The docking clamps are retracted, at least partially, before the system froze in response to the hack. All I need is them on board so I can firewall the throttle and get the fuck out of here.

"Miranda," I call over the comm again, looking out the cockpit window. "If you can hear me, forget that son of a bitch and get your ass aboard, because we've got a whole fucking Alliance fleet gunning for us right about now."

Yeah, that's right. The entire Alliance escort that came with us is turning to head towards _Bastion_, their gun ports open and primed. Shit.

"...pinned...Leng off...can't reach..."

I panic for a moment as Miranda's broken voice comes through the comm. Shit, this isn't the way it was supposed to go. I rush to the airlock. I may not like how callous she is, but Miranda's my only link to this universe. She's the only person I know, the only person I...trust...in this crazy, fucked up universe. Yeah, I trust her. Six months of living together will do that to you, I guess. And I may have just fucked up canon, but that doesn't really concern me. What concerns me is getting her out of this shithole _alive_.

"Hold on, I'm coming," I yell into the comm as I step into the airlock. My pistol won't cut it for this; I can see her position in the distance, she's pinned down by a squad of soldiers. Their gunfire is so thick she can't even poke her head out to throw biotics at them or shoot back. I look down at the corpse of the man I shot coming into the ship. The rifle's still on the magnetic clamp on the back of his armor.

Shit. I reach for the gun, unfolding it into a full-size rifle, and look through the scope. Where the hell is Leng? I _knew _ we couldn't trust the guy to not run off and do his own thing.

Okay, slowly now. Line up the shot. Breathe in. Breathe out. Press the trigger...

What the fuck? The soldier in my sights suddenly crumples to the ground as the deranged killer we just busted out of jail drops into their midst in a whirlwind of fists and feet and some sort of sharp implements he found himself somewhere.

Miranda ducks out of cover as soon as they stop shooting at her and advances. Kai Leng doesn't. I watch through the scope as he just keeps beating on one of the men on the ground. This is sick. It's like this is sport to him, or something. Miranda turns around to see that he is, in fact, _not_ behind her, and I pull the trigger, sending a shot past Leng's ear. It's really hard to resist the temptation to aim a few inches to the side.

That got his attention. He spins around and glares at me, while I make a jerking motion towards the airlock. He gives his unfortunate target one last kick, and then scurries towards the ship. Good. He's coming. Miranda's about halfway there, ahead of him, and making a run for it. The entire ship rattles, and the docking arm shrieks and shifts in protest. Fuck, I think the fleet started shooting. An alarm klaxon sounds, and an evacuation order is blaring over the intercom. Things are really going to hell here.

She must've had the same thought, because Miranda breaks out into a full sprint, abandoning all cover. I'm about to turn around and head for the cockpit to start the engines the moment she's on board - if Leng can't make it, it's his fault, screw him - when I see movement by a crate she's passing. Not ten meters away, a soldier ducks out from behind one of the cargo crates they unloaded from our ship and lines up a shot at her back. This close, the shields on her lightweight armor have no hope of stopping a point-blank hit.

I just react. In a second, I have the rifle shouldered and my target acquired. The sharp report of the round fills the air and gives even Miranda pause as she skids to a halt just a couple of feet away from me, a wide-eyed look in her eyes. She looks over her shoulder just in time to see the headless corpse collapse to the ground, then back at me.

Breathing out, I slowly lower the rifle. This is the second time in like ten minutes that I've shot and killed someone. Fuck, I think I'm going to be sick. But not now. Later. When we're away from this shitty place. I give her a curt nod, then turn back to head into the cockpit. In there, I don't even bother strapping in, I just firewall the throttle. The docking arm is still attached, but that's easy enough to tear compared to the clamps that used to hold us in place.

Fuck Kai Leng. Fuck this mission. I don't even give a shit if he's aboard or not, I'm taking off. I pull the ship away from the station as the Alliance fleet opens fire. There's no way I'm going to be anywhere near the station when it blows. With a tortured screech of metal, the docking arm tears loose, and then there's just silence as the debris clatters off the hull.

"Fuck!"

It's the first time I hear Kai Leng's voice aboard the ship. Well, I'll be damned, apparently he did make it aboard. But I'm too busy to deal with him right now, and so is Miranda. She's taken the controls from me and is swinging the ship around, right into the expanding debris around the station. She's trying to pull a _Millennium Falcon_ and hide in the debris field to make our exit on the other side. I'm glad to let her have the helm for that, because I sure as hell am not going to be able to maneuver us through that fucking mess out there.

"Jettison the secondary mass effect core," she orders.

I manipulate the holographic controls in front of me, and a second later, the spherical device tumbles out of our engineering bay, rigged to overload and create a point-singularity for a brief moment. Miranda explained it to me in one of our tech sessions, but I still don't quite understand how it's supposed to work, but apparently it'll blind sensors for a second by emitting broad spectrum radiation.

The core frizzles and dies, then shrinks to a point as the mass effect fields compress it into a self-sustaining singularity until, a split second later, it reaches critical mass and vents all that energy as radiation.

And Miranda hits the FTL.

T

Turns out that we didn't get away scot-free, after all. But I'm okay with that, because the only person to really come away with a dent is Kai Leng. Apparently when I pulled away from the station and broke the docking arm, he was still in it, and got caught in between pieces of the superstructure. He's pretty mangled, actually, and Miranda's not quite sure he'll make it.

Which doesn't bother me a bit. I found out from Miranda what happened while we were in FTL towards the relay. The fucking bastard left her alone once she started the hack to go on a killing spree. Just took off and left her pinned down. Turns out the Alliance ships executed the Omega Protocol not because of anything Miranda or I did. Leng fucking took off and, besides having his fun killing people, the fucking bastard actually went and sabotaged the station's outer fuel depots to self-destruct. The fleet just went and assumed something had gone catastrophically wrong, and started shooting. So now he's in the medbay with pretty much every bone in his body broken. Serves him right.

Miranda's taking us from relay to relay, making unpredictable jumps to throw off pursuit. We're scheduled to land at a secure Cerberus facility in a few hours to drop off Leng to get medical care and switch ships so we can return to the Citadel. And so Miranda can contact Tim. In the meantime, I'm sitting in a chair in the ship's kitchen, across the hall from the tiny, one-bed medbay. My pistol's in my lap, and I'm wondering if I should just do the universe a favor by putting a bullet through his skull.

And I'm wondering if this was all worth it. We just killed over three thousand people. I don't know how many personnel made it off the station before the Alliance opened up and blew the shit out of that place, but I'd wager a good number of them didn't. And all for this. All to break this sick psycho out of jail. Fuck, I'm tempted to put a bullet in his head, whether it'll fuck up canon or not.

Surprisingly, the thought doesn't sicken me. And even more surprising is the realization that it's not so much because of _what_ he is - a murdering, ruthless bastard without a conscience - but because of what he did to Miranda. Leaving her without backup to have his fun and jeopardizing our extraction. I'm not sure what the fuck I'm going to do once he wakes up, but at this point I just really hope he doesn't.

A brief tremor goes through the ship as we exit FTL at the relay. The engines hum loudly as the mass effect core links to the field generated by the relay, and then we're off. Finally out of this goddamn system, pursuit far behind. I'm starting to think this was a really bad idea. The pistol's heavy in my hands as I stare down at it. I made my first kill with it. And it feels absolutely terrible. I don't know how people like Kai Leng can enjoy killing. I know sometimes it's necessary, but to actually _enjoy_ it? Shit, I guess that explains why he's so fucked up. He's fucking insane.

And I think I'm finally going to be sick now.

With a wordless scream, I hurl the pistol against the wall. It hits with a muted crack and clatters to the floor. If the table wasn't bolted down, I'd probably try and throw that around, too, but as it is, I just follow behind it and kick the wall. The pain in my foot feels really good. It reminds me I'm alive, and, in some way, it feels like punishment for killing those two men on _Bastion_. I kick the wall again and again, ignoring the pain, until I can't stand anymore. I can still smell the blood, see my target's head explode through the scope in a shower of gore.

The rage is gone, replaced by bile. I sink against the wall, retching on the floor.

"I thought I might find you here." Her voice from the doorway is even, almost frigid. Figures the Ice Queen would pick now to make a reappearance. Come to gloat about how you knew all along I wasn't suited for this? How you knew better?

I look up at her, silhouetted against the brightly lit corridor. The lights are off in here, so I can't really make out any details as she walks towards me. She stops and kneels down next to me, and one of her arms goes around my shoulder. She stays like that for a long moment.

"It's never easy," she finally says. "Making a kill. Shooting at someone. We all do what we have to, but that doesn't mean it'll be pretty, or that we have to enjoy doing it. But sometimes, things have to be done."

"How does breaking _him_," I vaguely gesture in the direction of the medbay, "out of _Bastion_ justify all the dead we left behind?"

"It doesn't."

I look up at her admission in surprise. Well, I didn't expect _that_.

"I just hope that the Illusive Man knows what's at stake, and that he has a greater plan where their deaths will have meaning," Miranda continues quietly. "But that's not the real reason you're in here like this, is it?"

I just mutely shake my head.

"I knew the moment you looked at me like I was some kind of monster when I killed those men in the security office," Miranda explains, "I knew right then that you'd never killed anyone before. That you probably never would have on your own. It's the first time you've seen death up close, isn't it?"

"Those soldiers...they were just doing their _jobs_, Miranda," I reply hoarsely. My throat burns, but there isn't anything in my stomach left to come up. "We were the ones breaking in, we're the bad guys here."

"I know." She sighs and settles down against the wall, one leg stretched out in front of her. "Cerberus can be like that. But I'm sure you knew that already. Given your reaction, I'm surprised you signed up at all."

"Trust me, if there had been any other way I could've gotten aboard the _Normandy_, I would've taken it."

Miranda is quiet for a minute, and I just sit here wondering what she's thinking. This conversation is already so far off-course from what I expected from her, I'm not sure _what_ to expect. "Why?" she finally asks, so quietly I almost don't hear her. "Why is it so important to you to get aboard that ship? What's so special about her?"

I could feed her some bullshit about the big picture, or give her a snarky comment about asking Tim about what's so special about the _Normandy_. But, quite frankly, I'm tired. I'm sick and tired of monkeying around and playing pussyfoot around the topic. I'm a straightforward person, sometimes a little too straightforward, my friends and family back home told me, and this secret-agent dancing around the subject thing has never been to my liking. I'm just tired of trying to figure out answers to everything that won't give shit away. I'm tired of carrying the secret of the Reaper invasion by myself.

"There's something big coming. An invasion the size of which the galaxy hasn't seen before. Ask your precious Illusive Man, he knows all about it. He deludes himself into thinking he's preparing humanity for it, but he's just weakening us by driving us away from the other races. There's something out there, Miranda, something big, and scary, and fucking _deadly_, and we all need to work together to stop it. Humans, turian, asari, it doesn't matter. We need to stand together, or we'll all die. Ever wonder why the Protheans just suddenly up and went extinct fifty thousand years ago? Well, they got fucking _wiped out_! Three hundred years is all it took to kill off an empire that spanned the entire fucking galaxy. And we're next."

"How do you know this?" What really surprises me about her question is that there's not a hint of skepticism in her tone. It's almost as if she actually believes me.

Yeah, right. She probably is figuring out the quickest way to get me thrown into a padded room. Oh well, it's too late to go back now. "I have it on good authority that their vanguard is already operating somewhere just outside of Citadel space, and they've acquired inside help. The _Normandy_ is my best shot at tracking them down and stopping them," I tell her.

Pregnant pauses seem to be the order of the day, as Miranda is silent. Probably trying to process it all and figuring out if I'm lying to her, or actually am crazy enough to believe all the shit I just said.

"You realize that if that's the case, there's a lot more shooting and killing to be done before this is over."

Wait, what?

"What?" I echo my thoughts lamely.

Miranda turns to look at me. "If you're getting aboard the _Normandy_, it will be as a combat operator. Right now, we're creating your cover identity as an infiltration and tech specialist to be brought aboard after her shakedown cruise. If you really want to stop this invasion that's coming, there'll be a lot more killing before it's done."

"You have no idea," I mutter. The sheer number of casualties from Mass Effect 3 is staggering. Mind-numbing. Entire colonies, wiped out. Populations, cities, _planets_ just...lost.

"I get the feeling you know more about this invasion than you just told me."

Shit, she heard me. Damn genetically perfect ears. "Yeah," I admit, "but nothing I'm at liberty to say. Only this: they're called Reapers. And your Illusive Man knows about them. I'll let you ask him about how he knows. But if they have their way, they'll wipe out every man, woman, and child in the galaxy, regardless of race."

"How do you know all this? An honest answer. I think I deserve that much."

I give her a wry smile. "I don't think you'd believe it. _I_ don't even believe it."

"Try me." She shrugs. "I mean, you had to come from _somewhere_. Your sources, your information. I would almost be tempted to say you know the Shadow Broker, or that you _are_ the Shadow Broker.

I shrug. "I wish. But I'm not the Shadow Broker. Would you believe I'm an undercover black ops agent for an intergalactic society of peacekeepers for the preservation of all life, instead?"

It's her turn to give a wry smile. "Not a chance."

"I'm just a concerned citizen. And I meant what I said. You'd never believe where I got my information from."

"Like I said, try me."

"All right. I know all this because I'm from another dimension, and this is all a video game created by a company for entertainment purposes." It's the most serious voice I can muster.

"You're right, I don't believe you. Now what's the _real_ answer?"

"You're taking this rather well," I try to divert her attention. "I was pretty sure you'd have me committed the moment I told you."

The gleam in her eyes tells me I'm not off the hook yet, but she'll let it slide..for now. "I was going to," she admits, "but then I thought about it. You're...well, just a civilian. Why would you go through all the trouble to catch our attention, go through the training, and then go through with this? You clearly aren't meant to be firing a weapon, much less killing anyone, yet here you are. That leaves me with one of two conclusions. Either you're a deranged, schizophrenic maniac, or you honestly believe what you just told me. And considering all your information has been good so far, I'm leaning towards the latter."

She shifts, turning to face me directly. "You hate what you had to do. I can see it written all across your face. You hated killing those two men. And you did it anyway. Because you believe, you _genuinely_ believe that you can make a difference aboard the _Normandy_. You remember when I asked you whether I could count on you to have my back?"

I simply nod.

"Now I _know_ that you do. You killed a man for me today, even though you had no reason or incentive to. You had a tough call to make, a moral call. And you took the shot, anyway, because somewhere in your head, there's a bigger picture than whatever emotional and moral pain you find yourself in now. I trust you to have my back, because no matter how much it hurts you to have to do these things, you know they _need_ to be done. That's why I believe you."

I just stare at her in disbelief. What? "I...I don't even..."

Miranda lays a hand on my shoulder as the words die on my lips. "So...thank you. For saving my life back there. I know it can't have been easy to pull that trigger...and for what it's worth, something tells me that no matter how crazy you sound, you're doing these things for a reason. For the _right_ reasons. And since you had my back...I'll have yours. Deal?" She stands and offers me her hand.

It all comes down to this, I guess. I made the choice to take an active role in the Mass Effect universe. _I_ made the decision to find a way aboard the _Normandy_ and try to make a difference. And no matter how hard the journey, how rough the road, from here on out, I'm committed. All in, hold nothing back. If my intervention can save even one life that didn't make it in the games, then I'll have succeeded. It's gonna be hard, it's gonna be painful, and I'll probably never be the same...but it has to be done. It's a relief knowing that she'll be there with me. I've never liked being alone, and the prospect of facing the task before me, of having to somehow help prepare Shepard for the coming for the Reapers by myself, it's...daunting.

Terrifying. Just like the thought of the war that is inevitable.

I guess this is what Q meant when he said that in times of need, humans come together to achieve great things. Alone, I'd never stand a chance. With Miranda...oh, Miranda, I don't know if I have Q to thank for her change of heart or not, but I'm suddenly beyond grateful for her presence. Without her, I'd be lost, drifting around this universe without direction, or worse, be dead. But now, I actually feel like I have a chance. Hackett's speech suddenly comes to mind. _Stand fast. Stand strong. Stand together._ I chuckle, and grasp Miranda's hand, hauling myself up to my feet as I stop briefly to pick up my pistol. There's no going back now. I've never been one to do things by half-measures, anyway. Time to show the fucking Reapers they're messing with the wrong fucking cycle.

"Deal."

_We stand _together.

T

"Mr. Leng will need extensive medical procedures to regain full use of his limbs," the doctor informs Miranda. "But his internal organs are damaged to the point where we should look at having the majority of them replaced with cybernetics. It would be easier and much more reliable in the long term than vat-cloned replacements."

"Discuss it with the Illusive Man," Miranda counters easily, her Cerberus operative persona back in place. "I don't want anything to do with Kai Leng unless it is absolutely necessary. This...individual is a stain upon humanity. The less I have to do with him, the better."

"I understand, Operative Lawson, but please understand, our communications with headquarters are sporadic at best, and you, as the Illusive Man's second-in-command, are the nearest command presence we have. We would appreciate your authorization on this project."

Miranda glances at me for a second. I just shake my head. We both agree that Kai Leng has caused us enough trouble. I don't know if it was something I said, or if it was Q's doing, but she seems...agreeable to help me in my quest to help Shepard stop the Reapers. And to be honest, I think she's pissed at Leng, too, for that shitty stunt he pulled aboard Bastion.

"I'll authorize a priority communiqué to the Illusive Man for you. That is as far as my involvement goes," she says with a finality that even the over-eager doctor has to bow down to.

"Very well. The comm room is this way, if you'll follow me."

And then I'm left to my own devices. The Cerberus base is on some god-forsaken rock in the middle of nowhere in the Attican Traverse, at the border to the Terminus systems. We're basically at the ass-end of nowhere. The facility isn't very large, just four levels, two above and two below ground. I think they're doing some weird kind of cybernetics research and experimentation here, which would explain why Miranda knows about it.

The top two floors are taken up by what seems to be a conventional hospital, while the bottom two floors are R&D space. There's a small shuttle pad where we set down the stolen freighter; by now its registry is probably plastered all over civilized space. We're leaving it here to be dismantled; the facility has a number of shuttles that we can use to get back to the Citadel. There really isn't much for me to do here. I don't have any Cerberus security clearance, so I can't go anywhere except the first floor, and the weather's actually quite nice outside, so I just lean against the wall and wait for Miranda to emerge so we can head back.

It takes her longer than I thought it would, but when she does, she's frowning and looking at something on her omni-tool.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

"The _Normandy_ left drydock and headed for the Citadel to receive her commanding officer two days ago," she replies curtly. "I received a message from an operative stationed aboard the Citadel. The ship arrived and departed on her shakedown cruise under Alliance Captain David Anderson earlier today. That's three weeks ahead of schedule. Your cover isn't ready yet."

Shit. The _Normandy_ left while we were getting out of _Bastion_? I thought Miranda said she wasn't scheduled to leave till June! Then again, the game never did say if she was pressed into service earlier than intended. Considering her top-secret orders to reclaim the Prothean beacon from Eden Prime, though, it may be possible that the schedule was moved up.

"Check with recent archeological activity on Eden Prime," I tell her.

She taps away at her omni-tool, using her Cerberus clearance to dig through classified information that Cerberus's intelligence network has available. "There's been a lot of activity on Eden Prime recently. New shipments coming in, and a lot of personnel." She looks up and cocks an eyebrow at me. "Something I should know?"

"See if there was a request made to Alliance Command for a classified pickup and recovery from Eden Prime."

Her head comes up sharply. "How do you know I even have access to those channels?"

"I figured you might." I give her my most enigmatic smile...which probably comes off as a goofy grin.

"There's actually a processed request for emergency extraction," Miranda sounds almost impressed. "It was filed four days ago through secure channels."

Wait for it...wait for it...and she made the connection!

"The _Normandy _was sent to do the pickup?" she concludes. "Why send a prototype stealth frigate to do a pickup, even an emergency pickup?"

"Because whatever's being picked up is either really dangerous, or something the Alliance wants to keep under wraps for now," I answer easily.

"What could an archeological team have discovered that's..." her eyes widen as she looks up at me. "It's something related to what you told me, isn't it? It's some kind of tech?"

"It's a warning beacon. A prothean artifact left behind to warn whoever discovers it about the Reapers. And trust me, the Alliance isn't the only faction that wants it."

Miranda stares at me, and I can feel her evaluating what I just told her. Wondering if she should believe me or not. Finally, she says, "I'm not going to question how you know that...for now. It's making me suspicious, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. But I'm expecting an answer soon."

"I understand." It's a dangerous balancing act I'm playing here. I'm well aware of that. I'm taking a risk revealing all this info to Miranda, but if she knows, she can help me. If I don't provide any answers as to _how_ I know, however...let's just say I wouldn't trust the person who suddenly shows up with vital information about your enemy's movement, either. Maybe I can claim I hit an earlier prothean beacon, or something, and got a vision from it. Hey, that's not a bad idea actually! It still won't explain how I know so much about Cerberus, but...

Before I can open my mouth to answer, the world around me suddenly goes grey. All of it. Everything. It just fades to this grey-scale. What the hell?

"You can't tell her."

My head swivels around at the sound of the voice. It's Q again, leaning against a tree not too far away from me. He's still wearing that Starfleet uniform of his, and walks over casually as he buffs his nails on the uniform shirt.

"Come again?" I ask.

"You can't tell her where you're from. She won't believe you. Trust me, I know."

Okay, ignore for a moment the complete implausibility of Q having _stopped time_ in order to talk to me - oh, who am I kidding, it's freaking _Q_ - why can't I tell her? Apart from the obvious, anyway. "Why not?"

"Would _you_ believe someone who came out of nowhere with no records and information about your closest secrets when he tells you he is from another universe?" Q smirks. "I thought not. But not to worry, I'm here to let you know that you've made a favorable impression so far."

"Go me," I mutter. How about you quit with the pep-talk and give me some actual advice here, Q? "So if I'm not supposed to tell her where I'm from, what the hell am I going to tell her then? She's not going to let it go, you know. She knows I know too much to be some farm kid whose records got lost."

"And whose fault is that?" Q tuts in disapproval. "You humans...always so impulsive!"

"Yeah, you're one to talk about impulsiveness, Q. You just hurled the _Enterprise_ halfway across the galaxy to meet the Borg on a whim," I shoot back.

He just waves it off, the smug bastard. "Oh, that was nothing. One of my finer acts, I must admit, but in the grand scheme of things, I had my reasons. But that's beside the point. You've earned her trust for now...but it won't last forever. Sooner or later she'll want answers. Are you prepared to give them?"

"Like what?" I sweep my arms around. "That everything is going to go to hell in three years? That what awaits the galaxy is a bare-knuckled brawl for survival? That the Reapers are coming and will wipe out half the sentient population of the galaxy if we don't do anything about it before Shepard can stop them?"

"Well...I was actually referring to your origins."

"Like you said, she isn't going to believe me. And it's not like I got proof. Unless you'd like to put in an appearance?"

"I'm afraid I can't do that," Q replies entirely too jovially for my liking. "That would undermine the whole point of this little exercise. I'm not supposed to help you out, you understand."

"Then I guess I'll do what you wanted me to," I sigh.

Q looks almost intrigued. "And that would be?"

"I'll show you some of those human traits you seem to admire so much." Before he can protest against _admiring_ anything human, I continue. "I'll keep going and hope that by the time I tell her that I _can't_ tell her, she'll trust me enough to take my word for it."

"That's it?"

"It's all I got."

He looks nonplussed for a moment, before a grin spreads across his face. "I see. Yes, yes, that could work quite nicely, if you can manage that. However, if you fail..."

"If I fail, then it isn't going to matter, anyway, because I'll see you in hell."

"Oh, but there is no hell." Q smirks and raises his arm. "It remains to be seen whether your plan works. You seem to put an awful lot of _faith_ in her."

I just shrug helplessly. What else can I say? I need Miranda with me on this. And Shepard. But that's a whole other can of worms. "It's all I can do. Sometimes, faith is all you have." And from me, an atheist, that's saying something.

Q hums in acknowledgement. "I see. Perhaps you are right."

"I've got to be, Q. I've got to be." Because if I'm not, well...then I just doomed this universe to a Reaper invasion. Again. Hope and faith, they're all I have right now.

"Well, it was good talking with you. For what it's worth...I hope you succeed. I do believe the Continuum can learn something from you humans, you know. I truly do. Good luck!"

"Wait!"

"Yes?" he pauses mid-snap.

"Will I get home when this is over? What'll happen to me? I'm guessing it'll be years I'm going to be spending here if I survive until this is over."

"I told you once before not to worry about it. Now, I really must be going. Ta-ta!"

And he's gone, and color returns to the world. Well, shit. Figures he wouldn't give me a straight answer. I turn to look at Miranda.

"I will tell you what I can, when I can, Miranda. But I'm asking you to trust me on this. Please." Please let it be enough for her, because I can't do this alone.

She looks at me for a long moment, her eyes searching mine as if she's looking for answers there. Maybe she is. Maybe she's looking for a reason to believe me. Perhaps she's satisfied with what she finds there, because she gives me a curt nod.

"All right."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

The omni-tool pings with the results of the search. Now that we're back on the Citadel, Miranda's hurrying up the process of getting my cover finished so I can get aboard the _Normandy _once she returns from Eden Prime. I shouldn't be long now, maybe another day or two, considering their transit time. In the meantime, I've searched through C-Sec's customs records for Tali's arrival, and my search program just returned a hit.

Tali'Zorah nar Rayya is aboard the Citadel. Now all I've got to do is find her, and make sure that she's safe until Shepard can recruit her. That should be easy enough, she's not really in any danger until she runs into Fist. So all I've got to do is hang out in Chora's Den and wait for her to make an appearance.

The door to the tech lab opens behind me. I turn around to see what Miranda wants, only to stop in surprise. Wow. This is the first time I'm actually seeing her in her Cerberus uniform. Well, not _really_ her Cerberus uniform, there's none of the Cerberus logos that were plastered everywhere in Mass Effect 2, but basically the same cut and color as her alternate outfit. Black with gold and silver trim, with aviator's bars across her right lapel, with Alliance rank bars underneath. From what I remember of the notes she provided me with on the human military, I think they identify her as a Special Operations branch Major. Neat.

I can't help myself, I let out a low whistle. Hey, I'm not blind, and she's stunning. "You clean up good," I inform her with a shit-eating grin.

She actually smiles briefly at that. "I'm glad to know you approve. Here." She tosses a duffel bag at me. "Your regulation gear. Authorization came through from our operatives in Alliance command. You're now Special Operations Second Lieutenant Patrick Grayson, infiltration and tech. Once the _Normandy_ arrives, Captain Anderson will receive a notification that you've been assigned as their mission specialist following their return from Eden Prime. Your clearance codes are on the data chip. Likewise with your personal history."

"Thanks." A brief look through the bag reveals its contents: a set of light armor, BDUs, and a dress uniform. Speaking of dress uniforms..."What's up with the uniform?"

"Part of my new assignment from the Illusive Man."

"Conveniently in the same branch as my cover identity, huh? What a coincidence." I deadpan.

Miranda shrugs. "I thought so, too." The tone in her voice tells me she knows full well that I know that she had something to do with this.

I can see that she wants to ask me a question, but for the first time she doesn't seem sure whether to actually ask it as she just stands there, shifting anxiously. Huh, that's different, usually she just speaks her mind. I'm guessing it has to do with her reading the classified mission reports for the Eden Prime mission. "Something on your mind?"

"What happened down there?" Miranda finally asks after watching me sort through the contents of the duffel for a bit.

"You probably know better than I do. I'm pretty sure your sources have gotten their hands on copies of the report." Of course, if it was anything like the game, then I actually _do_ have a pretty good idea of what happened.

She grips my shoulder and spins me around. "This is _serious_! A spectre _died_ down there, and there's mentions of another spectre gone rogue. _What_ is going on?"

You know, the reach of the Cerberus intelligence network never fails to amaze me. I mean, it's one thing to see it in the game where, sure, it's this enemy group that's really powerful, but it's another entirely to realize they've got agents and informants _everywhere_. It's no surprise Cerberus's intelligence is rated as second only to the Shadow Broker's.

"It's hard to explain..." I begin, but then think better of it. "No, actually, it's really easy to explain. You know how I told you that I was sure the Reaper advance force was already operating in Citadel space?"

She nods. "You also mentioned that you believed they had infiltrated and turned Citadel space personnel."

"Yeah. Three guesses as to what just hit Eden Prime. And the first two don't count."

"That rogue spectre?" Miranda is nothing if not quick on the uptake. Kind of has to be, as Tim's second-in-command and all.

"Yeah." I find the data chip with my shiny new Alliance clearance codes, and insert it into my omni-tool. A screen pops up highlighting areas of the Citadel and listing Alliance facilities I now have access to. Neat. "His name's Saren Arterius. He's a turian who fought in the First Contact War. Let's just say after his run-in with the Illusive Man back then, he hasn't been too fond of humans ever since."

"Is that what this is all about? Some sort of revenge plot by him?"

"No." I turn towards her. It's really more complicated than that. I actually kind of felt sorry for the guy at the end of the game. "Saren is...he's doing the wrong things for the right reasons. At least, what he believes to be the right reasons. That's what makes him so dangerous." You know, aside from him being one of the Council's best spectres and all.

I can see the unspoken words in her eyes. _Just like you_. Yeah, in a way, Saren's just like me. Or maybe I'm just like him. We're both doing what we think is right, for the good of the galaxy. The only exception is that he's indoctrinated, and I'm not. I hope. It's scary to know that the saying is true...the road to hell really _is_ paved with good intentions. How do I know I won't end up like Saren? How do I know I'm not indoctrinated?

What if in trying to do the right thing I end up playing right into the Reapers' hands..tentacles...matter-deconstruction laser eyes. Whatever.

Fuck, this is giving me a headache. I guess I'll have to trust Miranda to keep me on the straight and narrow. And I'll have to trust that Q knows what he's doing. Because right now, I can't afford to second-guess what I'm doing. The _Normandy_'s almost here, Tali's here, and my new ID is here. It's showtime.

"It's a long story. If you read Captain Anderson's dossier, you'll notice he actually knows Saren. He's the spectre who oversaw Anderson's candidacy as the first human spectre, and failed him. Saren's ruthless as they come and he doesn't give a shit about whoever gets in his way. Now that the _Normandy_ is back from Eden Prime, I'd put money on the fact that they'll be sent after him." _That _Shepard_ will be sent after him_.

Miranda shakes her head in amusement. "Somehow, I don't think that's a bet I want to take. So that's why you were so insistent on getting aboard that ship. You _knew_. You knew she was going to head to Eden Prime, you knew she would encounter Saren and this...Reaper vanguard. That she was going to be sent after Saren."

"Yeah."

"So you're going after a rogue spectre and the advance force of an alien race capable of wiping out galactic civilizations?" Miranda cocks an eyebrow.

"That's the plan."

"You're either really brave, or really stupid."

I manage a humorless chuckle. "Actually, I'm just really scared. But I've seen what happens when the Reapers get a foothold. The death, the destruction...you can't imagine it, Miranda. _I_ can't even imagine it. Entire planets being wiped out without conscience or remorse. People stripped of their free will, of their _minds_, and turned into thoughtless creatures."

"How do you know all this? How do you know these things before they happen? How do I know you're not working _for _them? That you're aren't the one who's been turned like you suggest Saren has been?"

"I can't tell you how I know, Miranda, not yet. You need to trust me on that. But what I know of the Reapers...let's just say it's similar to what happened to Shepard on Eden Prime." I really hate not being able to tell her. But at least she knows about the Reapers now. "I need you to do something for me. I need you to...to keep an eye out on what I do, all right? The Reapers, they can...they can indoctrinate people. Twist their heads to do what they tell them without knowing it. They worm their way into your head. They're not like that tiny, insistent voice that tells you to do something, they're that feeling of exhilaration when you did something right...when you did something they wanted. It's insidious. And I'm scared, because that indoctrination takes good people and turns them into monsters. I don't want to end up like that."

"Is that how Saren..."

"Yeah. I'm not sure how he came across a Reaper to indoctrinate him, but yeah. And he's not the only one. No one's safe from it. So please, Miranda, I need you to watch over me. If I do something that's off, that can't be explained...I need you to assume the worst. If I end up indoctrinated, I need you to stop me before I do something terrible."

Wow. That was harder than I thought, and yet, at the same time, easier. I've never asked someone to kill me before. Any other time I'd have thought I was insane, but her question about Saren and thinking about _why_ he's doing what he's doing...it's really sobering. He's just doing what he believes is best, but it's twisted by _Sovereign_. I don't want that to be me. I couldn't live with it any more than Saren could.

Miranda just stares at me blankly for a few seconds. She's so still I almost wonder if Q popped in and stopped time again, but everything is still in technicolor. Finally, she lets out a long breath and says, "You know, you keep on surprising me. That's a lot of trust you're putting in me, because you have to realize a lot of what you're doing and saying is making you look highly suspicious."

"I know...but I trust you, Miranda. I know it's asking a lot, and that it's going to be difficult to figure out if I've been compromised. But you're the only one I trust to pull the trigger when there's no other way. You're the only one I _want_ to be pulling the trigger when it comes down to it." Well, it's either her or Shepard, but I won't be telling the Commander as much as I have Miranda. To be honest, I don't even know Shepard. I know _Miranda_, though, and I'm hoping that she'll trust me enough to let me work, and that the time we've spent together over the past few months will let her know if anything's wrong with me.

"I won't ask right now, but one day you'll have to tell me your story. The _true_ story. I'm sure it's quite interesting."

"I'd rather it wasn't, actually. No Reapers, none of this foreknowledge, that'd suit me just fine," I mutter in reply.

Miranda smiles. Actually smiles. "Perhaps. But I think that knowledge is in good hands." She pauses briefly, then lowers her head a little, breaking eye-contact. "Look, this is your assignment. I know the Illusive Man agreed to it, and I know I agreed to it, but I can't help but wonder if you're really ready for what's out there. You seem to know better than anyone what you're getting yourself into, but watch yourself out there, okay? I don't want to have to hunt your indoctrinated ass down to kill you. And I don't want to hear you wasted the last six months of my life by getting yourself killed."

"I'll try very hard not to."

"Good. Because I want to hear that story."

T

Chora's Den is...well, let's just say the game didn't really do it justice. It may have been the old particle engine and the blocky graphics, but...actually, I think it's just _that_ much grungier in real life. After explaining to Miranda that I was looking for a quarian who had information on Saren, I headed over here. Part of me is hoping to catch Tali before she meets with Fist's goon in the alley behind the bar.

The rest of me is trying to figure out how the hell I'm going to be of more help to Shepard beyond being just another gun. My most potent weapon right now is that I know what will happen, and where it will happen. I'm not exactly sure on the timeline - after all, the game never really gave any indication of how much time had passed in transit, and it was too open-world to nail down a specific timeline, anyway - but I know the general order of events.

But unlike with Miranda, I can't tell Shepard about the Reapers yet. I can't tell her I know what's coming. She would never believe me, and probably would have me locked up or investigated. Or, worst case, think I'm in league with Saren and shoot me.

Shit, I'm back to thinking of people shooting me, aren't I?

There's got to be a way I can help Shepard stop Sovereign. Let's focus on him and Saren for now, the rest of the Reapers can wait until they're dealt with. Unfortunately, that period after Saren, the one covered in Mass Effect 2 and 3, is the part where I can do the most damage to the Reapers. All right, that's then...let's focus on the _now_. Therum first to pick up Liara. Then Noveria and Feros. Benezia and the Thorian. There's not really much I can do there, they were pretty straightforward missions. I can probably nudge her in the right direction with the Rachni and with the Thorian creepers, and help make sense of the vision after the cipher. And then...

Virmire.

"Shepard just showed up at the clinic. She's got the krogan with her," Miranda's voice crackles over my comm, breaking me out of my thoughts. I asked her to watch Doctor Michel's clinic, in case Shepard decided to go there first after picking up Wrex from the C-Sec academy instead of talking to Harkin. Who, right now, is getting smashingly drunk in a corner booth. That's my cue to move. If Shepard's on her way, then Tali's about to meet with Fist's men. I stand up and discretely make my exit. It's not hard at all, considering the fact that every other patron is either busy watching the asari dancers or their glasses.

The alleyway is just like it was in the game. Only this time, I'm coming in from the other end, the end connected from Chora's Den. Shepard should show up on the opposite side of me, Tali, and Fist's goons. They're not here yet. Good. All I gotta do is make sure Tali's safe until Shepard gets here. Shouldn't be too hard; Tali handled herself pretty well in the cutscene in the game, and with the element of surprise, I think we can take down all three of Fist's men if we have to. But it'd be nice not to have to. No point in making Shepard any more suspicious than she'll already be.

Footsteps come from behind me, and I activate the tactical cloak that's part of my gear package that Miranda gave me. I'll tell you, Cerberus sure doesn't skimp out on the money when it comes to their operatives. It may just be Alliance-issue light armor, but it's got all the bells and whistles. Tactical cloak, reinforced mesh, rebreather, target-assist VI, the works. And an enhanced hacking and cyberwarfare package that links to my omni-tool, allowing me to hack into a _lot_ of places that I otherwise couldn't.

Tali walks into the alley. Wow, up close she's even more slender than she appeared in the games. She's really tall, though. I think she may be as tall as I am, or a half inch taller, even. She searches the alley, then settles down to wait.

"Shepard just left the clinic," Miranda informs me. "She, that krogan, and a C-Sec officer left a bit of a mess here. I'm following them."

I just click my send button as a reply to confirm. Shouldn't be too long now until...

Ah, there they are. A turian and two salarians, just like in the game. They stroll into the alley, completely unconcerned about checking it for an ambush like Tali did. Amateurs. It says something about their dull-wittedness if they're being outsmarted by a young girl. Well, young by quarian standards. And I didn't mean a young girl _girl_, but just...you know. Someone young. Younger than them. Nevermind, I'll just shut up now.

The conversation goes pretty much exactly as it did in the game. There isn't enough time for me to warn Tali, though, so I'll have to wait and see how this goes.

"Did you bring it?"

"Where's the Shadow Broker? Where's Fist?" There's that soothing, almost Russian-sounding accent we all know so well from her.

The turian's running his claws all over Tali, that son of a bitch. I'm not a violent person, but right now I'm half tempted to just clock him a good one. But not yet. I've got to wait for Shepard to show up. Don't want to tip my hand unless I have to. "They'll be here. Where's the evidence?"

"No way. The deal's off." And there's Shepard's cue. Tali's grenade goes off as she dives to the side, and...

"Lower your weapons, this is your only warning."

Well, _hello_, Jennifer Hale.

Too bad for Fist that his goons are about as dumb as they're ugly, because they actually raise their weapons. Shepard's squad has the firepower, the proverbial high ground, and clean line of sight. Unfortunately, the enemy has the cover.

Still, it's over in less than a minute, with both salarians and the turian down. And I never had to drop my tactical cloak. Nice. Shepard heads over to Tali, pulling her to her feet while Wrex checks on Fist's men.

"I knew it, Fist set me up!" Tali mutters angrily. Yeah, I'd be pissed, too. To be fair, though, I think she was getting desperate for the Shadow Broker's protection. It's not every day you get a renegade spectre coming after you.

"Are you all right? Were you hurt in the fight?"

Pretty sure this is a paragon Shepard. I mean, Have you _ever_ seen a renegade Shepard offer an option to surrender? Didn't think so.

"I know how to look after myself...not that I don't appreciate the help, but who are you?"

"I'm Commander Jane Shepard of the SSV _Normandy_. I'm looking for evidence to prove that the spectre Saren Arterius is a traitor."

I kind of feel like a voyeur here. I mean, I've seen this scene play out probably a half-dozen times in my playthroughs, but it's pretty different to just be standing here. Anyway, I'm pretty sure my job is done, without actually having to do anything. Time to quietly sneak away. I'm about to move when something touches my ankle. What the hell?

Shit, it's the turian. Apparently Tali's grenade didn't put him down for good. He's reaching for the bandolier one of the salarians has slung over his chest and hit my foot on the way there. Why would he...

Grenade!

I look around frantically to see if anyone's noticed him, but they're all looking at Tali, or covering the entry points into the alley. My pistol's in my hand and deployed before I can even think about it. Don't do it, don't reach for it, don't make me shoot you...

His talons close around the incendiary grenade and he yanks on it. Fuck. Maybe I can kick it out of his hand. Although on second thought, maybe kicking a grenade isn't such a brilliant idea...

The sharp metallic rasp of the pin echoes really loudly in the alley, and suddenly, Shepard's squad springs into action as I pull the trigger, sending a round into the turian's chest, sending him back into the ground.

"Movement!" Garrus's rifle is up and aimed the moment he heard the grenade pin move. I forgot how quick on the draw he is with that sniper rifle of his.

But as quick as Garrus is, Wrex is that much faster. His shotgun barks a half second after I pull the trigger, before Garrus has even brought his weapon to bear, and where my shot would've staggered a normal person, the blast of his massive gun tears a huge fucking hole in the turian's chest. In less than a second, it's over. Between my double-tap and Wrex's shotgun, the turian isn't going to be reaching for anything anymore. The grenade rolls from his limp hand and comes to rest against my boot. With a sigh that's half relief and half realization that I just shot someone again, I close down my gun and clamp it back on my belt.

You ever have a giant oh-shit moment? Like, when you realized that you probably just did something colossally stupid? Yeah, I'm having one right now, because I just realized that my tactical cloak fizzled out the instant I pulled the trigger, and there's about a half-dozen guns trained on me.

Oh, fuck.

"Uhm...hello?" I meekly wave at them.

"Identify yourself." All of a sudden, Jennifer Hale's voice doesn't sound quite as friendly.

Guess I hadn't needed to step into this mess, after all. Well, shit. "Second Lieutenant Patrick Grayson, Alliance Special Operations, ma'am. I was in Chora's Den when I noticed these thugs leaving the place looking like they were up to no good, so I decided to follow." Keep it close to the truth, hope they don't get too suspicious, and get the hell out of here. Oh, I am _so_ going to hear it from Miranda when this is over.

"You were sitting in cover all this time? How do we know you're not one of Fist's men sent to complete the job?" Tali asks angrily. I can understand that, I guess.

I just shrug in response. "Look, do you really think Fist is the kind of guy who does things stealthily? Besides, Fist sold out both you and the Shadow Broker to Saren. I was just here to make sure Fist's men weren't going to cause trouble, and you had it under control. I was actually about to leave when this shit happened."

"He's got a point," Garrus notes. Go, Garrus! "Tactical cloaks aren't cheap, and the ones available to civilians aren't nearly as good as his. I never even saw him. That's a military-issue cloak."

Shepard steps up to me, and even though we're about the same height, there's something really freaking scary about her when she stares you down. Like she's looking _down_ at you, actually, even if she isn't able to do it physically. Finally, she gives the tiniest of nods, and turns around, holstering her weapon. I let out an audible breath, at which the corner of her mouth quirks up for just an instant.

"Standard SpecOps procedure is to maintain cover at all times unless absolutely necessary. I'd say this," she taps the grenade on the ground with her foot, "qualified as necessary. Although what a SpecOps operative is doing here is another question. Care to answer, Lieutenant?"

"I'm waiting on assignment, Commander. Technically, I'm on leave until I report in to my new CO and hand over my transfer orders. Like I said, I was just hanging out in Chora's Den."

"Do you always hang out in clubs in full armor?" Ash asks skeptically.

"I do when the ship I'm assigned to board is scheduled to arrive within the hour, Gunnery Chief.," I retort. "Look, for what it's worth, I just wanted to make sure everything was all right."

Shepard just nods and then takes her helmet off. Wow. She looks...well, she looks a lot like the female Shepard I had in my Mass Effect playthrough. Shoulder-length red hair that's messily tied back in a pony-tail, green eyes. I wonder if this is Q's doing, and what class she is, because she only carries her sidearm. "I'm sorry for my abruptness Lieutenant, but we've all been on edge due to recent events, and we need that information on Saren. Thank you for your help. You'd best be getting to your ship. I'm sure it's arrived by now."

I chuckle and give her a brief salute. Oh, my ship's arrived, all right. "I'll be on my way, then, Commander. Good luck to you." I turn to Tali and extend a hand. "And be safe, Miss..."

"Tali'Zorah, Tali'Zorah nar Rayya." Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure quarians don't shake hands, but fortunately, Tali saves me from a faux pas by gripping my hand briefly.

"Miss Zorah," I finish, mostly for Shepard's and Tali's benefit. Can't let them know I already know Tali's name.

"About that information..." Shepard begins.

"It will give me a chance to repay you for saving my life. But not here. We need to go somewhere safe."

"We can take her to the human embassy. I'm sure your ambassador would like to hear about this..."

I turn around and walk away from the alley with a huge grin as Miranda's voice comes over the comm asking me if I'm all right. I can't really hide my grin. That was _Shepard_. And Garrus, and Tali, and Wrex, and Ashley. I'm really going to do this. Okay, so I just shot one of the mercs, but he was going to commit freaking seppukku and take us all with him. I still don't like that I had to shoot him, but at least he sort of deserved it. It still makes me a little queasy, but it had to be done. Just like so much else in the coming war has to be done. What did Ezio say again in Assassin's Creed II?

_Compio questo sacrificio per il bene superiore. Requiescat in pace._ Let's just hope I don't lose sight of the greater good. As long as I can still feel that remorse, as long as I can still regret, I won't lose myself.

"Yeah," I answer. "Yeah, I think I'll be."

T

By the time Shepard, Tali, Ash, Wrex, and Garrus arrive back at the _Normandy_'s docking bay from dealing with Fist - and judging by Wrex's happy expression (can krogan look happy?) the issue was resolved without Shepard putting a gun in anyone's face - I've already gotten my duffel together and reported in to Anderson. Or maybe she did shove a gun in his face. You never know with krogan if it's going to earn you their respect, or a headbutt.

Miranda accompanied me and handed my new fake marching orders to Anderson, only to have them returned. She seems confused, but I already know that he's relinquishing command of the _Normandy_, and as such, I have to report in to Shepard. He was suspicious enough to have the orders checked, though, but thankfully, all of Miranda's Cerberus contacts came through, and the orders confirmed easily.

So now we're all standing around waiting for Shepard to come back. Miranda is standing next to me, ramrod straight, the very picture of a soldier, something Anderson seems to respect. By contrast, I'm standing a little to the side, duffel slung over my shoulder and leaning against a bulkhead. It's not that I don't want to make a good first impression, but I've never been really good at standing in line. Anderson shoots a glance at me and leans over to Miranda.

"Are you sure he's up to the task?" he whispers. I've got really good ears, though, and I meet Miranda's eyes.

She retorts easily, with a bare hint of an amused smile. "He may surprise you, Captain." I'm surprised to see that she actually seems to genuinely mean that. Perhaps I'm no expert in reading body language, but live in close proximity to someone for six months and you learn to pick up on a few things. Her eyes, the way she's standing, that little quirk in the corner of her mouth. She's being dead honest, and it isn't just part of her cover. Wow.

"In a good way, I hope."

"Of course."

"Let's hope so, for both of our sakes, Captain." That's Udina. The man's just as sleazy in real life as he was in the game. Or maybe I'm just being biased, because I know what a backstabbing douche he turns out to be in the third game, but I can just _hear_ the sleaze dripping off his voice. "Because what you're going to do is going to cause a major political shitstorm. We can't afford anything to go wrong with this."

Jeez, what is it with Udina and the word shitstorm? Does he, like, get royalties every time he uses it?

"I assure you, ambassador, Special Operations knows the importance of this assignment. Rear Admiral Mikhailovich felt that the _Normandy_ needed at least one infiltration and dedicated tech specialist in her ground crew. Lieutenant Alenko is good, but tech is not his forte." You go, Miranda, tell that slimy bastard who's boss. She's grinning evilly now, although just for a second. Blink and you'd have missed it. "Would you like a personal demonstration?"

"That won't be necessary," Anderson cuts in. Spoilsport. "I believe the Major has made a valid point. As it stands, the _Normandy_ has no technical specialist aboard."

Well, there's Tali, but Anderson doesn't know that, and I sure won't tell him. It's apparently enough for Udina, because he shuts up and goes back to staring glumly at the elevator, as if Shepard's arrival would herald his own impending doom. Okay, maybe I'm over-dramatizing a little, but I don't like politicians.

The elevator dings, and the Commander steps out followed by her entourage. By now, there's no other word for it, because it _is_ an entourage. Flanking her are Tali and Garrus, with a grinning Wrex towering behind her, and Ashley bringing up the rear. Ashley doesn't look too happy to be surrounded by so many aliens, but she'll just have to deal with it. Granted, her xenophobic attitude always grated on me a little in the game, but perhaps that's another one of those little things I can do. Maybe nudge her slightly...

The group comes to a halt as they spot us. Shepard looks briefly surprised when she sees Anderson and Udina, and then her eyes come to rest on me. She quirks an eyebrow, but that's the only indication that she's surprised.

"I've got news for you, Commander," Udina begins. "Big news. Captain Anderson is stepping down as the commanding officer of the _Normandy_. The ship is yours now."

Miranda looks over at me, and I just give her a little shrug. Her eyes narrow at me. Yeah, she knows that I knew. Doesn't surprise me in the least that she figured it out. I'll probably be getting hell for that later for not telling her, but seriously, what would I have said? _Oh, by the way, a little bird told me Anderson's not going to be the _Normandy'_s CO anymore?_

"She's quick and quiet, and you know the crew. Perfect ship for a spectre. Treat her well, Commander," the captain explains.

"I'll take good care of her, sir."

"I know you will. And there's one other thing, Commander." He gestures at me and Miranda. "You have a new crew member."

"We meet again, Commander," I greet her with an easy grin. Hey, it's not every day you meet _the_ Commander Shepard in the flesh and get to surprise her!

"Lieutenant. Good to see you found your ship, after all," she acknowledges with just as easy a smile. Well, she got over her surprise quick. "What's the occasion?" she asks Anderson.

"The Major and the Lieutenant are from Special Operations," Anderson explains, smoothly ignoring or dismissing the fact that we already know each other. "I'll let her explain."

Miranda just hands over the datapad with my transfer orders. Shepard briefly looks through them, then up at Miranda.

"Admiral Mikhailovich requested this?"

"He believes that the _Normandy_, considering her potential deployment zones, would require a technical and infiltrations specialist on the ground team." _Deployment zones_, that's code for _you'll be up to your neck in geth, and you need someone who's handy with an Overload or three_. At least that's what Miranda and I agreed on when we worked out the cover.

Shepard's eyes wander to Tali briefly. Miranda, of course, notices. "I was unaware that you had already picked up a tech specialist, Commander. However, I do believe you'll find his infiltration skills a useful addition to your squad."

"I'll take all the help I can get," Shepard shrugs, then looks at me.

I can't help it, I give her a brief salute. "Reporting for duty, ma'am."

"Good to have you, Lieutenant." She returns her attention back to Anderson, effectively dismissing me. I stick around, though, I kind of want to hear what he has to say, and truth be told, I kind of want to get to know Tali and Garrus better. Wrex scares me a little, but I figure he probably won't kill me unless I do something colossally stupid.

"I want the truth, Captain. Why are you stepping down, sir?"

"You needed your own ship. A spectre can't answer to anyone but the Council. And it's time for me to step down." He takes a deep breath and looks over at Udina. The ambassador shakes his head slightly, but Anderson seems to ignore him. "The Alliance, the galaxy needs someone like you. Someone young, someone with perspective. A fresh crew. They need someone to look up to, Commander. Someone who knows how to survive, how to _win_."

Shepard isn't buying it. "That can't be all of it. Come clean with me Captain. You owe me that much."

"I was in your shoes twenty years ago, Commander. They were considering me for the spectres." I surreptiously look over at Miranda as they talk. After what I told her about Anderson and Saren, this isn't news to her.

"I had my shot. It came and went. Now you have a chance to make up for my mistakes." Damn, actually listening to Anderson makes me...almost sad, really. The guy could've been a hero, the first human spectre, but he had his entire career tanked because Saren didn't like humans.

"What mistakes? What happened, sir? I'm guessing this has something to do with Saren?"

Anderson just gives a hint of a nod. "Yes. Decisions were made and actions taken that I'm not proud of, but that had to be done. Maybe I'll tell you later, but for now, it isn't relevant. Right now, what's important is that I'm not directly connected to your pursuit of Saren."

Shepard still doesn't seem to make the connection, so I decide to jump into the conversation. "Because of your prior history with him, and his refusal to sanction your entry to the spectres, any information you would bring would appear biased before a neutral party."

"Correct," Anderson nods at me. "And that's why it's important that you have the fastest ship and the best crew, Commander. Saren is good. He's the best spectre the Council has had in decades. To beat the best, you need the best on your side."

"You can count on me, sir," Shepard confirms.

Udina chimes in at that point, telling us that there's been reports of geth activity in the Traverse, on Feros and Noveria. Of course, Shepard, being who she is, has to note one thing:

"The Reapers are the real threat."

Yeah, too bad no one's going to listen to you right now. Well, aside from me and Miranda. The rest of Shepard's squad looks a little confused at the mention of the Reapers, though. Well, with the exception of Ashley. After what she's seen on Eden Prime, I'd be willing to believe she's buying into the Reapers big time. She's actually looking a bit...well, depressed and angry. It's a combination in women I have a lot of experience with, and no, it's not what you think. They usually come to me with their problems for someone to listen. And then go right back to their boyfriends. Go figure I _still_ don't have a girlfriend, not that it matters much to me. Shit, losing her squad can't have been easy for her. I may not like her xenophobic attitude, but maybe I should just talk to her about it.

"What are these Reapers?" Tali asks.

I'm tempted to answer, but I catch myself before I spill anything I'm not supposed to know yet. Luckily, Shepard beats me to it. "They're...it's hard to describe. All I can tell you for sure is that they're bringers of death, and that Saren is in league with them and the geth. I had a vision from a Prothean beacon on Eden Prime, and it showed me the destruction the Reapers are capable of. It's horrifying. Entire worlds were burning." She shudders a bit at the memory. Yeah, Bioware did a pretty grisly job with the flashes in the cutscene with the beacon, but it probably doesn't even come close to actually experiencing it. But I know what she means. It's gonna be bad before it gets worse. And yeah, I got that right.

"I'm with the Council on this one, Shepard. I'm not sure they even exist," Udina replies evenly. Man, are you gonna be surprised when _Sovereign_ shows up and starts knocking holes in the Citadel. Of course, you're all going to just write it off as a geth attack afterwards. Stupid politicians.

Miranda looks at me sharply, and I give her a brief nod in answer to her unspoken question. _Is this why you wanted to help Shepard and came to me, because you knew no one would believe her?_ I'm guessing that if it wasn't for my really inexplicable presence here, Miranda wouldn't have believed me, either. I'm still not sure she does, but I'm hoping that what I'll find with Shepard will convince her that this threat is real. That maybe we can help prepare the galaxy a little earlier than Shepard alone would.

Thank heavens for Anderson's pragmatism. "But if they do exist, the Conduit's the key to bringing them back. Stop Saren from getting the Conduit, and we stop the Reapers from returning."

For the time being, anyway. But I don't voice that, and I haven't told Miranda yet. Better to let her get used to the idea of the Reapers to begin with before I spring _that_ bomb on her. Yeah, you know that big honking space station that's been the seat of galactic civilization and government for the past few thousand years, ever since the asari found it? It's a _trap_. A giant, deadly, millennia old trap designed to kill every single galactic leader and throw their armies into disarray in one fell swoop.

Yeah, she doesn't need to know yet. But I'll have to let her know eventually. Maybe at the same time I can nudge Shepard into preparing for the invasion already. Maybe I can get her to think about a what if...what if the Reapers have a Plan B if the Citadel fails?

Shepard and Anderson are finishing up their discussion. Looks like we just picked up the quest to go fetch Liara from Therum. She snaps to attention and salutes Anderson one last time.

"We'll stop him, sir. You have my word."

"Good. Now get going, Commander. We don't have a lot of time, and Saren's got a head start." Anderson returns her salute, then walks away with Udina.

Miranda takes that as her cue, as well. She gives me a brief salute, which I return. "Good luck, Lieutenant."

"Thank you, Major." There's more I wish I could've said, but not with Shepard or anyone else around. _Thank you, Miranda._ I will her to understand how much her help means to me. How lost I'd be without her in the mess that this universe is about to become, knowing what's coming but unable to do anything about it.

With a last look that I just _know_ means _be safe_, she turns on her heel and walks away. I look after her receding form for a moment before turning to face Shepard. "Commander. Permission to come aboard?"

She smiles easily, and beckons all five of us. "Permission granted. Come on. I'll give you the brief rundown of the ship, and then I'll let you choose your quarters."


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Note**: Sorry for the late update, but work's been a pain lately. I'm glad y'all are enjoying the story, and I figured I'd take the time to shout out to everyone who's following and having fun with me on this crazy ride. It's about to get crazier, because here's the _Normandy_!

Rob DS Zeta: When I saw your review, and your comment about Tali asking about the Reapers, I almost laughed, because TheRev28 actually asked me the exact same thing :) And I shall answer you with the same I did him:

The scene in Udina's office plays the following recording that Tali acquired, verbatim from the game:

Saren: "Eden Prime was a major victory...it has brought us one step closer to finding the Conduit."  
Benezia: "And one step closer to the return of the Reapers."

It doesn't actually explain what the Reapers are; as far as the squad goes, Shepard is the only one who can link the Reapers to the Protheans via the vision. No one else on the squad knows anything about them. All they know is that Saren and Benezia are working with the geth apparently to bring them back.

And there you have it, my reason for having Tali ask Shepard what the Reapers are :)

**Chapter Seven**

I'm really on board the _Normandy_! Finally! It seems like forever that I arrived in the Mass Effect universe, and the road hasn't been easy, but right now, I don't care! This is awesome! My inner geek is totally geeking out, because the ship's _just_ like in the game. As we walk in through the airlock, Shepard waves to her left. Joker's sitting in his chair in the cockpit and doesn't even bother turning around. He just lazily waves over the back of his chair.

"Hey Commander," he greets. "Starting a collection?"

"They followed me home. Can I keep them?" she shoots back good naturedly. Turning to us, she actually walks backwards into the corridor leading from the cockpit to the CIC. "That's Joker, our pilot. He's one of the best."

"Just _one_ of the best? I'm hurt, Commander!"

"I'm sure you'll recover." Shepard grins and walks us down to the CIC. "Deck One houses the combat information center, auxiliary engineering controls, and FTL sensor equipment. Pressly," she greets her new XO as we pass him. He just gives us all the evil eye. Oh yeah, now I remember, he was a bit of a stick in the mud until things really got going. It's too bad he goes down with the ship over Alchera in Mass Effect 2. Hmm...

We hit the stairs and descend down into Deck Two. "Here's the living quarters, mess hall, sleeping pods, and med bay. There's also a small storage unit in the back, which we mostly use for medical supplies. Doctor Chakwas is our CMO," Shepard explains. Yeah, I vaguely remember that storage room. It's been a while since I've played Mass Effect - I'm much more up to date on the last two games - but that's where Liara sets up, I think.

"You're free to use the mess hall at any time, just be aware that the food dispensers are only refilled at 0600 every morning. If you have a craving for a midnight snack, you may want to bring your own," she adds with a chuckle as we turn a corner and head into the elevator.

"Deck Three is mostly storage and engineering. It's also our staging area, as the main cargo doors are located at this deck, along with our M35 _Mako_ support vehicle. Perfect for airdrops." She leads us past the Mako, and I can already see the gleam in Garrus's eyes. "If you need anything, talk to our requisitions officer at the back of the cargo hold. If it's within our budget, he'll pass the request on to me or Staff Lieutenant Alenko who doubles as our quartermaster, and we'll see what we can do. Over there is engineering. Chief Engineer Adams is in charge."

I can already see Tali's itching to get a look at the Tantalus drive core, so I decide to show off a bit and see if I can beat Shepard to it. Hey, I'm an engineer, I love this stuff! And Miranda had her Cerberus contacts pull all the technical specs on the _Normandy_. Prototype frigate she may be, but top secret clearance has never really stopped Cerberus before.

"The Tantalus Mk. IV drive core is a state-of-the-art Systems Alliance cruiser-sized eezo core capable of providing reactionless propulsion for ships weighing up to two-hundred and fifty thousand metric tonnes. Superconducting coils allow it to operate continuously without overheating for twenty-six hours without needing to discharge. The refined element zero recovered from Prothean ruins on Mars allow this drive core to exceed standard non-relativistic FTL speeds by fifty percent." I can just see Tali looking like a kid in a candy store when she sees that core.

Wrex has tuned me out, but Tali, Shepard, and Garrus are staring at me slack-jawed. Well, at least I think Tali's slack-jawed under her helmet - more to do with the actual specs of the engine, than my knowledge of it, I'm sure - and I'm no expert on turian facial expressions, but I think that's surprise. Shepard just grins at me.

"An engineer on top of everything else, Lieutenant?"

"I was an engineer before I joined SpecOps, Commander. Just because I now do something else for a living, doesn't mean I don't like to keep up on new developments."

"Impressive. You may want to check in with Engineer Adams to see if you can help out during your off-shift. We're running light on crew, so we'll need all hands on deck."

"Yes, ma'am."

She gives me a mock glare. "And don't call me ma'am. It makes me feel old."

"Yes, Commander."

"I'll leave you to it, then. We depart in one hour, you're free to go explore the ship and settle into your quarters. If there's anything that you want transported on board from the Citadel, let requisitions know. I need to speak to Lieutenant Alenko about our requisition for dextro-compatible provisions." She ambles away. I never really bought into that whole moving with catlike grace thing. I mean, I know martial artists and dancers back home who move very gracefully, but no one ever seemed like they were actually _prowling_.

But somehow, Shepard looks like she's on the hunt for prey even while showing us around. Dang, that's hella scary. I let out a quiet chuckle when I notice that Garrus has already taken off to look at the Mako, while Wrex and Ashley have retreated into their cubbyholes down here. That just leaves Tali. Who's still looking at me. I really wish I could see through her faceplate, because I have no idea what her expression is.

"What are you waiting for?" she asks suddenly, grabbing my arm and dragging me into engineering.

"Whoa, whoa, wait..."

"Who the hell are you people?" and that'd be Chief Engineer Adams.

I straighten up and pry Tali's hand off my arm. "Sorry about that. I'm Lieutenant Patrick Grayson, this is Tali'Zorah nar Rayya. We're with Commander Shepard's ground team. We were just looking around."

"Look at that core! How did they fit something that large in here?"

And there's Tali, going off into dream-space at the sight of the Tantalus core. I gotta admit, it does look rather impressive up close. I read up on the specs, sure, but still, seeing a piece of tech like this in person...let's just say that it must've been a heck of a job fitting that thing in here, because the Tantalus core takes up the majority of space in the cramped engineering bay. I mean, you can tell it was designed for a much larger ship.

"I see. Welcome aboard. Now, what're you doing in my engineering bay?"

Seeing that Tali's still staring off at the core like it was a piece of candy to be ravished - yeah, I let my imagination fill that in, sue me - I shrug and reply for us both. "I'm an engineer, and she's a mechanic. The Commander told us to report to you to see if we could help out."

"You're an engineer?" He looks me up and down. I know I don't particularly strike an engineer-y impression, what with my armor, gun, and all.

"Part time." Thank you, Harrison Ford, for that wonderful line.

"You any good, kid?"

"I'm decent. I kept up, but I haven't been an active engineer in years."

"Years?" Adams snorts in amusement. "You don't look old enough to have been out for years."

"I'm twenty-five," I supply helpfully. "I went into SpecOps right after school. Doctorate in aerospace engineering."

Adams cocks his head at Tali. "What about her?"

"She's a quarian. If she wasn't a genius with mechanics, I'd be worried." I know I'm stereotyping and that not all quarians are expert engineers, but I know _Tali_. And she's nothing if not a genius engineer.

"All right. I'm expecting Shepard's going to keep you both relatively busy, but I'll draw up schedules for your shifts. I'll be wanting you to run supervised duty only until I've got an idea of what you can do."

"Sounds good. Miss Zorah!" I bite my tongue, shit, I almost called her Tali. Well, nothing wrong with that, but it'd be kind of rude to just call her by her first name without being invited to do so. It's really weird, because I feel like I know her already. Her, Garrus, Wrex, hell, the entire crew, practically, but I can't actually show it. Yet.

She startles out of her reverie. Or maybe she was running calculations. Or something. I can just see her running the math on that drive core in her head. "Oh, please, just call me Tali, Lieutenant. Chief Adams, I'd be happy to help out. These systems are fascinating!" Now she's running back and forth between consoles, looking at drive output projections, temperature readings, and power flows. What did I say? Kid. Candy store. Yup.

"Well, come on then, Tali. You can always come look at the pretty Tantalus core later. We need to find quarters before we leave the Citadel, because I'm not sleeping in a shared pod if I can help it," I tell her. She doesn't seem too eager to leave, though, and I bet if it was up to her, she'd probably set up camp right here in engineering. Now that I think about it...isn't that exactly what she did in the game? It should be interesting to see where the crew actually goes and sleeps and spends their time when they're not statically fixed in the same positions.

Tali still isn't budging from her perch over a console as she looks at the core's readouts. "But there's so much to look at! Chief, how do you keep..." she continues chattering out questions as she turns to face him.

Okay, that's it. I look over her shoulder at Adams, who's just grinning like a madman. Figures he'd be happy with that. He just waves me off. "Go on, kid. Get settled. I'll make sure she has a place to bunk. If you turn out to be any good, I think we can work out some half-shift duties down here between the three of us for you two."

"Thanks." While I do love this part of the ship and the tech, I kind of want to explore the rest of the _Normandy_ more. No, seriously, I'd happily spend days in engineering just learning about what makes the Tantalus core tick and how it ties into the ship's operations. _After_ I've found a place to sleep. To be honest, just looking at engineering has left me feeling a little out of my depth. Miranda's tech briefings and training has prepared me for the theory of all this crap, but to actually apply all this?

Uh...yeah. It's a little overwhelming, to be honest. I'm used to dealing with, well, with 20th century tech. Or rather, 21st century. I mean, I can figure out the basics, but Adams is probably going to be ripping out his hair trying to teach me all the stuff I need to know before he lets me work on my own. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I'm actually really looking forward to working down there, but it's all...wow.

I'm rambling. Well, there's nothing better for me to do, really, while I wait for the damn elevator to take me up. Of all the things to be just like the game, it had to be the slow-ass elevator. Garrus is nowhere to be seen, but judging from the sound of things, he's probably somewhere inside or underneath the Mako. Ashley's not here, either, and Wrex...well, Wrex is in his corner. He had his back turned to me when I passed him, so I'm not going to disturb him for now. Should put up a sign. _Disturb the krogan at your own peril_, or something.

The elevator finally arrives with a ding, and I punch the button for Deck Two.

"Hello. New aboard?"

Holy crap, it's Kaidan! I almost didn't see him there as he comes up behind me and gets in the elevator. Man, he must've come from way back in the cargo bay, probably through the open bay doors. "Yeah. Staff Lieutenant Alenko, is it?"

"I see you did your homework," Kaidan has an easy smile, but he seems a little down. I guess seeing Jenkins get shot on Eden Prime hit him pretty hard. He seems friendly enough, though. I'm guessing as the man in charge of the ground team after Shepard he's got to get to know everyone pretty well.

I throw him a sloppy salute. "Lieutenant Patrick Grayson, Special Operations. I'm your new infil and tech specialist."

"So the Commander informed me. Welcome aboard." He actually reaches out to shake my hand. "So, have you been briefed on what we're getting ourselves into?"

"My CO at SpecOps gave me the rundown from your Eden Prime mission report. We're hunting down a rogue spectre who's in league with the geth, right?"

"Something to that effect."

"I'm guessing you're on your way to speak with the Commander?"

Kaidan nods and winces slightly. Oh, right, I forgot, his L2 implants tend to give him migraines. "Yes, with a little stop on the way."

The elevator stops on Deck Two, and we both head out. Me to the left to the crew quarters, him to the right towards the med bay.

I give him a little wave. "Good meeting you, Lieutenant. Hope the doc's got something for that migraine of yours."

He nods at me and heads through the med bay doors. All right, time to see where I can find me a spare bed. There's no one in the crew quarters right now, which doesn't really surprise me. There's not a lot of crew to begin with, and they're probably all at their stations making sure the ship is ready for departure. Two of the bunk beds are still unassigned, at least, they're not made and there's no bags or signs on them, so I drop my duffel on one.

Unpacking doesn't really take me long as I drop my meager belongings in the footlocker underneath. It's just a couple of changes of BDUs, spare boots, a spare omni-tool, a gun maintenance kit, and a picture that I mysteriously found in my desk at the apartment's tech lab a couple of days ago. It's of me and Miranda, after our mission to bust Kai Leng out of _Bastion_. She's got her arm around my shoulder and we're sitting on the floor of our appropriated Alliance supply ship.

I remembered the moment the instant I saw the picture. It's when she told me she knew I'd have her back. I think I have Q to thank for it; I immediately made a copy for my omni-tool. Not that I'm likely to forget, it's just...nice to have something to remind me. My armor and my pistol are probably going to have to go into the armory lockers back down on the engineering deck, so I use the opportunity to change before anyone else comes in.

Time to get back to that slow-ass elevator, I guess. It's just as slow coming up as it was the last time. The deck's still pretty deserted, although Kaidan's coming out of the med bay and heading into Shepard's quarters-slash-office. I give him a small wave as he passes by, which he returns. He looks a lot more chipper now, actually. Guess Doc Chakwas had something to make him feel better.

The elevator finally arrives, and, after yet another excruciatingly long wait in it - thank god it's not playing any elevator music, or I'd be about ready to slit my wrists, Reapers be damned - I finally arrive back on Deck Three. Huh. There's already a locker with my name on it. Guess these people work fast. The armor's stowed away and secured, so I'm left with pretty much nothing to do until the ship sets sail, so to speak. I think I'll go see how the rest of the crew is doing. Crap, that means another ride on the elevator of bore-doom.

No seriously. Deck One to Deck Two had stairs. They couldn't have added them in to Deck Three, as well? What the hell? Garrus is still messing with the Mako, at least I think he is, considering his feet are sticking out from underneath. Either that, or he's taking a nap down there. Ashley isn't by her workbench, though. And Wrex...

Yeah, about Wrex. You know, for a giant, half-ton mountain of krogan muscle and armor, he can be _really_ sneaky. And quiet. Because I don't hear him at all until one of his hands crashes down on my shoulder and nearly causes my legs to buckle. What the hell is it with people sneaking up on me today? Holy crap, if that was his equivalent of a friendly slap, then I don't think I want to be his enemy.

"I don't like people sneaking around me," he rumbles from right next to me. It's really all I can do to not just stand there and tremble in abject terror, because close-up, even without his shotgun, he's just _that_ freaking intimidating. Don't believe me? You try standing right there as he stares you down next time. I mean, I love Wrex and all, and he's one of my favorite characters from Mass Effect, but _holy flying squirrel on a nutcase_ is he scary. And his scar, is it...is it...

Twitching?

What the crap? How does it even...it's a solid plate...how can it...

"To be honest, I don't think I like sneaking around you, either. It's bad for my health," I mutter back, but he still hears it.

And, to my surprise, he starts gargling with laughter. "Oh, you're a sharp one. You weren't just in that bar by accident, were you?"

I shrug. Guess it can't hurt to admit that much. "Not really. SpecOps tracked down Tali the same way you did. I was there to make sure her deal with Fist didn't go south."

"I see. Good reflexes on that turian. Barely heard your gun cycle before you put that round in him."

Did he just...?

"Almost makes up for the fact that you skulk around like a vorcha."

Ah, there we go. I shrug, now somewhat comfortable in the knowledge that he isn't going to rip my head off. I'm not exactly going to argue the point. I mean, would you? "Think of it this way. More kills for you."

He stares at me for a long moment, then lets out a last, rumbling chuckle, and ambles off into his corner. "Just try not to get in my way, human."

"I'll try not to," I mutter and head off to the elevator to head up to the CIC.

T

"This is Commander Shepard speaking. We have our orders: find Saren before he finds the Conduit. I won't lie to you, crew. This mission isn't going to be easy. For too long our species has stood apart from the others. Now it's time for us to step up and do our part for the rest of the galaxy. Time to show them what humans are made of. Our enemy knows we're coming. When we go into the Traverse, Saren's followers _will_ be waiting for us. But we'll be ready for them, too. Humanity _needs_ to do this. Not just for our own sake, but for the sake of every other species in Citadel space. Saren must be stopped, and I promise you all...we _will_ stop him."

That speech was epic in the game. I still remember it, and the score in the background, and it was like, hell yeah, time to kick Saren's ass. But you know, watching it on your computer screen doesn't really compare to standing there, in the CIC, right behind Shepard as she addresses her crew. I mean, in the games Shepard always was charismatic, but the extent of her leadership was always kind of dulled by the fact that it was a game, that it's lines of codes and sequences of scripted events.

Here, now, watching her, listening to her, for the first time I truly understand why Anderson put his faith in her. Why it has to be Shepard who stop Saren, why it has to be _Shepard_ who leads the fight against the Reapers. Because no one else could have inspired and led such an endeavor and marshaled the loyalty of all the different factions of the galaxy. No one else could've begged, bribed, and blackmailed every single faction in the galaxy, from the quarians to the geth, from the salarians to the krogan, from the turians to the Terminus mercs to work together to take the fight to the Reapers.

It's not really something that can be described easily in words. You'd have to have been there to fully understand the extent of that woman's sheer charisma. It's just a few words, but the _way_ she says them, it's something that can't be conveyed easily without witnessing it first-hand.

"Well said, Commander. The Captain would be proud." Joker's right on cue.

Just like in the game, Shepard turns around and heads from the cockpit to the CIC. "The Captain gave up everything so I could have this chance. We _can't_ fail."

The ship shudders briefly as we make the transition through the mass relay, and we're underway to Therum. Now that the ship's actually moving, I'm not quite sure what to do with myself. Tali's still down in engineering with Adams - I think he's so taken with her affinity for mechanics that he's forgotten all about me - and all the other crew members are, well, doing whatever they're doing. There's nothing really for me to do other than stand awkwardly around the CIC and wait for shit to happen, at least until we get to our destination.

Pressly brushes past me without so much as an acknowledgement of my presence as I stand at one of the consoles surrounding the galaxy map, idly checking up on systems with geth activity and trying to draw up a map of the Reaper invasion from Mass Effect 3 to keep me occupied when Shepard suddenly stops next to me.

"Lieutenant. A word, if you would."

"Of course, Commander." I transfer the map files to my omni-tool and shut down the terminal before heading over to the elevator. "Where are we going?"

"My office."

Uh-oh.

Her expression the entire elevator ride is neutral, but she's not saying a word, which is kind of freaking me out. Maybe she _isn't_ all that happy to have me on board, after all. One utterly uncomfortable elevator ride later, I'm sitting in her office-slash-quarters on Deck Two while she's behind her desk, staring at something on her terminal.

"So..." I begin awkwardly.

"You follow best."

"Pardon me?" What the hell?

"You follow best," she repeats, finally looking up at me.

What is she talking about...? She's not saying anything else, just sitting across from me, staring at me with a perfect poker face. Wait, _you follow best_, that sounds familiar...Where have I heard that before?

"You follow best, by following from in front. Thus your prey never knows that he is not actually the predator." I can't help it, I just say the first thing that comes to mind. Okay, calm down. Look her in the eyes. Don't let her see you sweat. Just think of her like a krogan. A human-sized, hurricane-speed force of utter destruction if you get on her bad side. Okay, that didn't help. At all.

Finally, she breaks the silence. "You're pretty slow with something that should be second nature to Special Operations. That creed is drilled into every single SpecOps operative I've ever met from day one of basic training."

Shit, what the hell? Q, if this is your doing, I'm _so_ going to strangle you when I see you next. I almost laugh, because despite the situation, the sheer...impossibility of a line from Aaron Allston's _Wraith Squadron_ having found its way into this universe is pure absurdity. Finally, I just settle on a shrug, and the truth, from a certain point of view. "My training officer isn't exactly standard SpecOps. She's got...unique methods."

Shepard quirks an eyebrow at that. "Does she, now? Lieutenant, if you're not up to this mission, I need to know right now, because I'm not jeopardizing the mission or the lives of my crew because someone under my command couldn't cut it."

I straighten up at that. I may not be a soldier - well, after the last six months, maybe I'm a little bit of a soldier - but I'll be damned if I'm not giving it everything I've got to stop the Reapers. And no one, not even Shepard, is going to question that. Between the last six months and the knowledge of what's coming and that I'm stuck in this reality, there's no damn way she's moving me off this fucking boat until the Reapers are gone or she spaces my cold, dead corpse.

"Commander," I start, and lean forward so I can prop my elbows up on her desk. Intimidating or not, I'm not backing down on this one. "Let me make one thing perfectly clear. What you're going up against is not only Saren, or the geth. Those Reapers you mentioned...they're a threat to the entire galaxy. And right now, aside from you, and me, and my CO in SpecOps, and perhaps certain members of your crew, _no one_ is going to believe in the existence of the Reapers. I'm here to help you, whether you like it or not, because I _believe_ the Reapers are a real threat. _The _real threat. This is bigger than you and me, bigger than the Alliance, and I have a feeling it's even bigger than the entirety of the Citadel races."

There's that stare of her again, so much like Miranda's, that seems like she's looking straight through me, trying to find something...maybe something to make her believe in me, something to convince her I'm for real. I stare right back at here, because this is the one thing I won't budge on.

"All right, Lieutenant," she finally says, leaning back into her chair, her stern expression melting away to something a little more...well, not exactly relaxed, but more casual. There's a knowing, almost amused smirk on her lips as she settles back. "You're not really here because Rear Admiral Mikhailovich requested SpecOps presence for the _Normandy_, are you?"

"Oh, he actually did." After a little helpful and suggestive editing by his Cerberus secretary, anyway. "But you're right, he didn't request _me_, specifically. I'm here because as I mentioned, my CO and I believe that there's bigger stakes than just a rogue spectre. And if we're right in our assumptions, then...well, let's just say we figured you could use all the help you can get."

"Why?"

"Excuse me?"

Shepard's eyes wander all over the room, before settling back on me, before she repeats, "Why? Why are you so convinced of this? I admit, if I hadn't experienced the vision myself, I would be skeptical of my own claims. What do you know that I don't? That the Council doesn't?"

"Know?" I chuckle slightly at that. "We know nothing for certain, Commander. If we knew and had proof, your ship wouldn't be the only one going after Saren. No, we don't _know_ anything for certain. But there's certain things that don't add up, things that only make sense if the existence of the Reapers is taken into account. Much like you had to convince the Council of Saren's treason, it's my job to convince my superiors at SpecOps as to the reality of the Reaper threat."

"That still doesn't tell me _why_, Lieutenant."

I've got to choose my words very carefully here. It's a perfect opening to prepare her for what's coming, but if she think in any way that I'm playing her...it won't be pretty. "There's intelligence sources that have picked up chatter. The higher-ups dismiss it as mercs banding together for a coup in the Terminus systems, but they've so far been unable to crack their encryption." Okay, that's the truth. I just conveniently didn't tell her that it was _Ceberus_ intelligence, instead of Alliance intelligence that picked it up. And that no one but me and Miranda knows why they're even listening in on it.

"It's geth in origin, that's all they can tell, but it's not _geth_. It's more advanced than anything the geth have, more advanced than anything the quarians know the geth to possess," I press on. "Maybe it's just mercs playing with some new tech, but I don't buy that. I think there's something out there. I think _Saren_ has something out there, something big, something more advanced than anything we've ever seen before. A warship, a station, a base, _something_ that he's basing his power on. That he's controlling the geth from. Think about it, Commander. He's not at all concerned about having all his assets frozen and his spectre status being revoked in Citadel space."

The signals that Cerberus picked up...well, Miranda doesn't have a clue what they are, and while I don't know how to crack them, I know where they came from and what their purpose is. They're _Sovereign_'s communications with Saren and the geth forces in Citadel space. I think that went a long ways to help convince Miranda that I'm not bat-shit crazy, because even Tim had no clue as to how to approach breaking Reaper encryption. But needless to say, she agrees _something _ is out there.

I wonder if she's going to keep her word and not report this to Tim. It was a hell of a fight to get her to agree to that, and I finally backed down, leaving her to make that call. I still haven't talked to the guy in person, and, to be honest, I don't think I ever want to. I don't know how he started out. Maybe he really did believe in doing the right thing for humanity from the beginning. Or maybe he was being indoctrinated from the moment he came into contact with that artifact on Palaven. But I couldn't very well mention my concerns to Miranda without revealing a hell of a lot more than I intend to for the foreseeable future. I just hope he isn't going to like, warn Saren or anything. But even so, he seems pretty set against the Reapers until he goes bonkers with trying to control them at the end of Mass Effect 2.

"I see." Shepard sighs and shuts down her terminal. Maybe we're done with the grilling? I sure hope so, because this isn't exactly how I'd hoped my first real conversation with Shepard would go. "I'm guessing you're wondering why you're in here, Lieutenant?"

"The thought had crossed my mind, yes."

"I don't know you. I don't know why you're here. Everyone else..." she runs a hand through her hair and shakes her head ruefully, "everyone else here is easy to figure out. Wrex is here because it's a personal matter. He's a mercenary hired by the Shadow Broker to find out who sold him out, and he's doing exactly that. Officer Vakarian is here because he's been chasing Saren for months now. Miss Zorah is here because of her pilgrimage. Everyone else is part of my assigned crew. But you..."

"You don't know my motivations. My allegiances." It finally dawns on me what she's doing. _Why_ she's doing it. Just like Miranda, she needs to figure out where I stand.

Shepard nods in confirmation. "I need to know what makes my crew tick. What motivates them, what brought them here, because in the end, that's what'll determine the difference between them staying alive and dying. I need to trust my ground team. I need to know that I can trust them under any circumstances. It's easy to know what to expect when you're dealing with mercs, or law enforcement officers, or idealistic young women trying to make their mark. Intelligence operatives, on the other hand..."

"I'm not exactly your standard, cookie-cutter intel operative, Commander," I chuckle at that. Michael Weston, I'm not. Although if I was, would that make Wrex Fiona? And Garrus Sam Axe? Hell, maybe that'd make Tali Jesse. Wow, that's kind of...funny, actually. I can't help it, this stupid grin's sneaking past my ability to control.

"Something funny, Lieutenant?"

"Just...just something I remembered. When you called me an intelligence agent. I'm...yeah, let's just say that I'm not exactly the subtle type."

That brings an amused smile to her face. "Really, Lieutenant? You _were_ advertised to me as an infiltration specialist."

"If your infiltration involves shaped charges to blow holes in doors, I can do that real inconspicuously, Commander," I half-joke, and she actually chuckles at that.

"My kind of infiltration job, then."

"In all seriousness, I do have some hacking and stealth op expertise, and I'm pretty handy with a sniper rifle." Well, I am, now that I've been told the trick to acquiring targets quickly is to keep both eyes open on the scope. It was a little disorienting at first to try and combine one magnified image with one that's not, but once I got used to keeping the two images somewhat separated, it got a whole lot easier to find my next target than taking my eye off the scope. I'm still shit with any automatic weapon, though. Recoil control? Not exactly my strength.

"Good. We'll see just how good you are when we deploy on Therum. Get some rest, Lieutenant. You're going to need it. Briefing at 0700."


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's Note**: Sorry for the late update, but work's been a pain lately. I'm glad y'all are enjoying the story, and I figured I'd take the time to shout out to everyone who's following and having fun with me on this crazy ride. It's about to get crazier, because here's the _Normandy_!

Rob DS Zeta: So the scene goes, indeed! I bow to your superior knowledge of Mass Effect lore and cutscenes...hehe. I admit, it's been a while since I've played the original Mass Effect, so I mainly just looked up the cutscenes and important sections on Youtube. I hope you'll pardon that little quib, though, and I'll admit it, even though it wasn't planned, it'll tie in nicely with something I've already planned and written in later chapters.

I also wanted to add, good luck to TheRev28 at college! I'm sure you'll have a great time - I did, and still do. All the best, and good luck! College can be harder than helping Shepard save the universe, you know...hey, that's a great line, maybe I should use it!

Sorry for the belated update, but this week's been hectic as hell. I'll make it up to you :P

**Chapter Eight**

Therum is...well, it's actually not as bad as it looked in the game. From space, at least. It's actually quite densely populated. According to Alliance records, it's become somewhat of an industry and trade hub since its settlement. The briefing wasn't really anything new to me; basic information on the planet, Liara's last known location, and that was basically the extent of our intel. Yeah. And then we got air-dropped out of the _Normandy_'s main cargo hold. In the Mako.

You heard right. Air-dropped.

From freaking two klicks up in the air.

From the _Normandy_. Going, oh, about Mach 12, I'd guess.

My first reaction to that? I think my gut dropped way ahead of me to the ground. I think it went something like...

"Holy craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa..."

And then the mass effect fields kicked in and reduced local gravity to something a little less bone-jarring and more comfortable. And the rest of me caught up with my gut. Man, I'm really glad I skipped breakfast. Because that 300-meter fall back on _Bastion_? Yeah, this is way worse. Even with the mass effect fields on, the Mako hits the ground with a good thump and we all bounce up and down like one of those bouncy castles for a few seconds before the suspension finally absorbs all the impact.

Speaking of, what the fucking hell kinda suspension did those crazy Alliance engineers build into this damn thing? I mean, what kind of crazy bastard comes up with the idea to _air drop_ a freaking _tank_ from fucking _cruise altitude_? _Without_ a parachute?!

Holy crap, it's a good thing I actually decided to follow proper safety procedure and strapped myself in tightly. I'm gonna have bruises across my collar bone tomorrow, but it's better than a concussion from hitting my head on the roof. Garrus isn't exactly enjoying the experience, either; I'm pretty sure if turians could turn green, he would. Wrex, on the other hand, is booming with laughter from the gun turret.

Yeah, figured the psycho krogan merc would enjoy this. As for me?

"-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap!"

Without waiting for us to recover, Shepard floors the accelerator and we take off, still bouncing, swinging around in the cab as she just _rolls over_ obstacles, instead of, like, y'know, _avoiding_ them like any sane person.

"Commander!" I call through my comm. Trying to talk through the bulkhead separating us from the driver's compartment is impossible. "Shouldn't you wait till we have a definitive heading?"

Right on cue, the comms crackle with a direct link to the _Normandy_. "Commander, we're picking up some anomalous readings from your south. Repeat, on your Sierra, nine klicks out. Looks like ruins of some sort. I'll mark it on your map."

"Copy, Joker. Shepard out." She clicks off the line to the ship. "You were saying, Lieutenant?"

I can practically _hear_ the cocky smirk on her face. And the wild ride commences. Those crazy physics everyone hated in Mass Effect? Yeah, somehow Alliance engineers actually managed to make them _real_. The Mako suddenly jumps up as Shepard engages the thrusters and then just _hangs_ there in mid-air for a bit while sailing over terrain. And then the damn thing goes vertical. _Vertical_! As Shepard tries to climb a fucking mountain in it. I swear, we're breaking a dozen different laws of physics here. Newton would have a hissyfit and rotate in his grave. Around all three axes.

There are no windows on the Mako, something which I'm beyond grateful for, because that means I have no idea what kind of insane speeds Shepard is driving at. Whatever it is, I'm pretty sure it's beyond the legal limit. If there _was_ a legal limit. But whatever it is, I probably don't want to know. Plus, I'd probably be getting vertigo. Unfortunately, this being a troop transport, there isn't much to look at, either, and so the entire ride to our destination is spent clinging on for dear life as Shepard alternates between running over obstacles, and firing the thrusters to get over those she can't actually run over.

I have no idea how long it's going to take Shepard to cover nine kilometers driving like this, but we should be running into the geth pretty soon.

"Dropship! Engage at will, primary the armatures," Shepard calls over the comm. Wrex's only response is the thunderous report of the main cannon, followed by the chatter of the side-mounted gatling guns. Okay, now I wish there were windows or something, because sitting in a vehicle - armored or not - driving around at breakneck speeds while people are shooting at you? Yeah, it's kind of nerve wracking if you can't see what's going on. I hope we're winning.

Wrex howls from up in the turret, and there's a huge crash outside. Stuff clatters off the hull of the Mako and the ride gets bumpy as hell for a bit. I _hope_ that means he took out the armature and Shepard drove through its flaming wreckage. Wait, I thought there were-

_Boom_!

Yeah, there were _two_ armatures. The Mako rocks and slides precariously as Shepard narrowly dodges a blast from the geth platform that's now seeking revenge for its friend. I don't know how thick the armor on the Mako is, but honestly? I don't want to find out this way. I look over at Garrus, and I'm willing to bet he's thinking the same thing. Unfortunately, we don't have any heavy weapons other than the one Wrex is manning, and aside from hanging on, there's nothing the two of us can do.

Wait a second. I wonder if there's wireless down here.

Hell, even my smartphone had 3G in the middle of the wilderness. Wonder if the geth use AT&T or Verizon? I key up my omni-tool. It takes a little longer than I want it to, because it's really hard to type with the Mako's suspension rocking me all over the place.

"Shepard, we've got rocket troopers," Wrex calls from the turret as the gatlings spin up again. Oh shit, I better hurry this up.

"Focus on the armature, let me worry about the troops," Shepard replies tersely as she Mako suddenly changes directions. What is she-

There's an almighty clang as something metallic hits the front of the vehicle, followed by a loud screech and crunch as we roll over something. Oh. Figures. Still, I don't think Shepard can actually GTA over all the geth in the area. My omni-tool finally beeps with a connection, and I bring up a geth-specific piece of software Miranda requisitioned from Cerberus. It starts scanning, and I select the strongest signal in the vicinity. I really hope that's the armature.

With a quiet beep the program goes to work, scrambling the armature's command transceiver. The main gun roars to life again, once, twice, and then it falls silent.

"Armature down," Wrex reports evenly as he brings the smaller guns to bear against the geth troopers around us. Don't know if what I did helped, but I don't really care. The damn thing's down.

The Mako stops swerving around like a drunk rhino as Shepard straightens it out. There's no more small-arms fire ringing off the armor, and she's thankfully going in a straight line now. Wow...good thing I don't get seasick easily.

"We're clear, for now," she informs us over the comm. "There's a compound coming up ahead. Radar indicates a side passage up a serpentine. We'll take the Mako up as far as we can, then disembark and sweep the compound on foot, if necessary."

"Shepard," Garrus speaks up across from me as he thumbs his radio on. "Are you sure you don't want me to drive?"

"It's fine, Vakarian. I've got it under control." And off we go again, at crazy speeds no sane person would drive at. Especially through rough and hostile terrain.

And in the turret, Wrex is still laughing.

T

_Finally_! Free at last, I'm finally free at last of that infernal machine! That metal monstrosity! No more! I tumble out of the Mako. Land! Solid, non-shaking, swinging, or otherwise moving land! Garrus is even a little unsteady on his feet as he exits behind me. Man, I know some of the others mentioned that Shepard's driving was bad, but, _dang_, her driving is bad. Dammit, why couldn't I tell her that I can drive stick some of the other SIs did? I mean, it can't be that hard, Dylan did it without needing any kind of grand training on Ilos!

Wrex and Shepard, on the other hand, seem to have enjoyed the ride, because right now he's slapping her on the shoulder, a wide grin splitting his scarred face as he hefts his shotgun. She gives him an equally carefree grin before slipping on her helmet and drawing her own shotgun, her arms starting to glow blue with biotics. Huh.

Guess I'll get my first taste of Shepard in combat. Shotgun, biotics...guess that makes her a Vanguard? Yep, she's a Vanguard. Why am I so sure?

Because she just glowed and disappeared from right in front of us with a crack of displaced air. And now she's over there, by that geth sniper behind the wall, filling him with...well, I want to say lead, but do Mass Effect guns even _use_ lead? "Fan out. I want snipers on the high ground. Grayson, overwatch. Vakarian, set up across from him. Wrex, with me."

I click my mic twice to confirm the order and unsling my sniper rifle. It's a bulky thing once extended, blocky and unwieldy. Kind of reminds me of the Barrett M82A1 from back home, really. Just like the Barrett, I don't think I'll be firing this thing from the hip anytime soon. There's a tower not too far away from me with an open platform a couple of stories up that probably once was part of the gate assembly. Looks like a good enough place. Garrus must've seen it, too, because he's already looking through his scope for targets anywhere close to it.

With him covering me, I exchange my rifle for my Karpov and make a dash for the doorway. It's open, the door having been either removed or destroyed some time ago. There's a really weird creaking sound coming from inside. It's rhythmic, almost bouncy. Like something's hopping around inside.

Wait. Geth. Hopping.

"Incoming!" I dive to the side as a burst of gunfire scythes through the doorway. Holy fucking shit, that was close. Garrus is taking cover behind the Mako, the barrel of his rifle poking around as he looks for a target.

Goddamn hoppers. I can't hear anything anymore, so I think he's stopped. Don't know where, though. My radar's dead, shit, I forgot these guys jam. I key an overload into my omni-tool. Man, I wish I had a corner shot right about now. I glance over at Garrus, who gives me a nod from cover.

Okay, here goes.

I hit my tactical cloak and swing across the doorway. The hopper is right in front of me, its flashlight head scanning the room. It can't be the only one, though, because it only has that head-mounted laser. The gunfire must've come from...ah, there they are. Below the stairwell, backed up against the stacked crates.

Two regular geth troopers and the hopper. Huh, this is going to be interesting. Okay, Miranda, time to see how good your Cerberus toys are. You know, it's really funny how as technology advances, the old tried-and-true methods from even decades back seem to fade into obscurity. In the age of omni-tools capable of throwing around overloads and sabotage programs, soldiers using incendiary and frag grenades are a rarity. And even so, it's more of a novelty thing than the actual lethal weapon it used to be in 20th century trench warfare.

So the concept of a broad-spectrum EM flashbang? Preposterous! Who needs a physical grenade that adds weight to your equipment when your omni-tool is capable of projecting an overload charge?

Simple: the person who needs to be able to deploy something without shorting out their tactical cloak.

I wish I could've seen the look on the Cerberus tech's face when Miranda ordered a couple dozen simple polymer-casing, delayed charge EM bombs. Thankfully, though, Miranda didn't even question my logic. In fact, I think I may have even surprised her a bit when I brought it up. I mean, that was something I'd always wondered. Starfleet always knew that the Borg could be easily killed with projectile weapons. Hell, Picard did it in _First Contact_. So why the hell not make slugthrowers standard issue? Granted, there's a danger that the projectile ammo will pierce the hull, but still...beats having a ship and crew assimilated.

Huh, maybe I'll ask Q about that next time. I sneak over to the two troopers behind their crates as quietly as I can, and drop the EM grenade out of sight, with its fuse set to five seconds.

The hopper is right between me and the doorway. A little to the left...it's perfectly framed between the two troopers now.

Four.

I draw my pistol and take off the safety.

Three.

Steady...my hand-eye coordination has never been all that good, but the target-assist VI in my shades really helps. Point the gun at one of the troopers. Point the omni-tool at the hopper.

Two.

Double-check your aim. Take a deep breath. I toggle the optical filter on my glasses.

One.

Slowly let it out.

Zero.

The EM grenade goes off with a high-pitched whine and a brilliant flash of light, blinding the two troopers and shorting out my tactical cloak. I pull the trigger on my pistol and omni-tool at the same time. The first round from my pistol glances off the trooper's flashlight-shaped head, but the second round finds its mark.

The overload slams into the hopper from behind, staggering it forward just enough to put it in sight of the doorway. And right into Garrus's crosshairs. Its head explodes in a shower of sparks. Great. Two down, that just leaves one geth to contend with. I spin around and drop to a knee to steady my aim as the trooper recovers from the EM radiation that flooded its sensors. It's coming at me really damn quickly, abandoning its rifle at these close quarters in exchange for trying to grapple with me.

I pull the trigger as quickly as the gun will let me, but the pistol rounds just glance off its chest plating. In my haste and panic, I'm in no condition to aim for its head. The pistol clicks, the covers lock back to expose the glowing heat sink, and a red flash warns me that it's overheated.

Shit.

The geth slams into me, and the impact sends me rocking off my feet and into the ground. And once again, I find myself with a lethal thingamabob of death sitting on my chest, trying to disembowel me. Whoa, deja vu. I mean, _really_? First a varren, now a geth? Unfortunately for me, Miranda's not around to hoist it off me with her biotics this time.

And _damn_, it's heavy. It's hands are digging into my armor, easily punching through the lightweight material. If I can get my omni-tool in between us and get that blade to work...

There's a flicker of blue light and a crackle of discharged energy, and then the weight of the geth trooper is gone as Shepard shoulder-rams it coming out of her Charge. And really, unless you've seen someone do a biotic charge in person, you have no idea just how...intense it is to just be in the vicinity. It really does deserve that capital C. The crack and rush of displaced air, the flare of light and energy, the sheer _force_ with which she rams into the geth, strong enough to actually breach its armored breastplate, the way she uses her biotics to create a local barrier in front of her to absorb the impact and do the damage, the shock of the impact, it's a rush like you wouldn't believe.

And I can just imagine the grin on her face behind her helmet as she needlessly pumps two rounds into the crumpling trooper with her shotgun. "Need a hand, Lieutenant?" she asks and easily hauls me to my feet.

"Man, I gotta stop doing that," I mutter to myself.

"Doing what?"

"Almost get eaten." At her curious look, I just chuckle and shake my head. "Long story, Commander. Thanks. You better get out there and help Wrex out."

Right on cue, there's a bark of his shotgun and the roar of an angry krogan, interspersed with the occasional thunder of Garrus's rifle coming from the outside. My radar's back up, so I'm hoping that means there's no more hoppers around. I need to get up those stairs, pronto.

"You sure you got it?"

"I'm sure." I hit my cloak and make my way up the stairs as she turns around and charges back outside. I better hurry or I'll miss the party.

Fortunately, there's no more geth in the actual tower proper, and my progress to the balcony I spotted earlier is unhindered. It's a really nice view of the courtyard and the rest of the compound, so I unlimber my sniper rifle and dial in the scope. The firefight downstairs is not really intense; between Garrus staying in cover and taking potshots, and the geth in elevated positions in cover, there isn't really much in the way of targets for Shepard and Wrex to actually charge to. A few of the geth are unfortunate enough to actually pop out of cover to shoot at them, but those are quickly taken care of by our two biotics.

But progress isn't exactly fast that way, because other than a few exceptions, most of the geth are smart enough to stay in cover, or on high ground. But as high as their ground is, mine is higher still, and I've got a perfect view of some of the geth from here. Well, time to get to work. Bracing my rifle against the railing, I pick out a geth hiding behind a piece of rubble that looks like it could've been part of a building's roof at one point and line up my shot. Breathe in, slowly let it out and press the trigger.

The sharp snap of a hyper-accelerated round fills the air as my cloak cuts out, but the geth drops to the ground with its flashlight head missing. Next target.

Pull.

_Crack_.

Aim.

Another geth trooper drops.

Almost like shooting skeet. Not that I've ever shot skeet. But if I ever _had_ shot skeet, I'm pretty sure it'd feel like this. Just, y'know, with a shotgun instead of a sniper rifle. And with clay pigeons instead of geth.

It's strange. I feel a little bad for shooting these guys, but unlike the turian back on the Citadel, and the soldiers on _Bastion_, these _are_ the bad guys. Kind of. Okay, so was the turian merc. But the geth aren't really _alive_, and they're kind of evil, corrupted by Saren and the Reapers. They're not really self-aware, more like drones controlled by an overall intelligence that, itself, isn't really aware and alive...yet. I never really thought the geth were completely alive in every sense of the word until Legion, really, because most of them are mere combat platforms with the bare minimum of processes for autonomous or semi-autonomous functions.

So yeah. It still sucks that I have to shoot at them, but it doesn't really feel like I'm "killing" anything. Or maybe I am. Hell, I don't know. Does shooting heretic geth and not feeling too terrible about it make me a bad person?

Between me and Garrus providing cover fire, and Wrex and Shepard on the ground, the geth are soon a non-issue. Well, that went better than I thought it would. The immediate area around us is clear, but I remain up here until Shepard gives the recall order. Doesn't look like she will just yet, though, as she and Wrex go through the buildings around us, clearing them one by one to make sure we didn't miss any resistance, what with our radar being unreliable.

"All clear," she finally calls as she and Wrex head back to the Mako.

"Overwatch is clear," I add.

"Confirmed," Garrus agrees from a position across and in between a rock formation.

Shepard looks up at me and taps the side of her helmet. "Bring it in, Overwatch. See any road from here?"

"Nothing big enough to fit the Mako through, Commander. Looks like we'll have to go the last two kilometers on foot," Garrus reports.

Wait a moment, I think there was a trick here somewhere. I look through my scope and look at the roadblock at the end of the path. "I think we actually _can_ fit the Mako through there, Commander," I note. Yeah, I remember now. My second playthrough, taking the Mako through there made my life so much easier.

"Through this?" Garrus looks at the narrow opening. "I don't think it'll fit."

"Then we'll _make_ it fit," Shepard says mischievously as Wrex clambers into the turret of the Mako. "Light 'er up, Wrex."

With a thunderous boom, the main cannon explodes part of the roadblock, leaving a cratered hole wide enough to fit _two_ Makos side by side. Oh _yeah_, that'll work. Probably unnecessarily gratuitous destruction, but it'll work.

"You were saying, Vakarian?" Shepard strikes what I call the Janeway pose. Standing with her head tilted slightly, and her right hand resting on a cocked right hip. Yeah, that's smugness radiating from her, all right. Man, I don't remember Shepard ever being this fond of destruction.

Wrex's laughter fills the comm lines. "Her, I like," the krogan bellows as I climb back down from my perch and we all pile back into the Mako.

None of us manage to beat Shepard to the driver's seat.

T

The ride to the entrance of the prothean ruins is more or less as I remember it. Littered with the occasional geth squad and armature, but fortunately, we're in a freaking 23rd century version of a Bradley. With a big honking gun on top. Between Shepard driving like she was in GTA and Wrex's cannonfire, the geth stand absolutely zero chance. Pretty soon we're in sight of the big building we're supposed to go into.

"Commander, we've got a dropship incoming. Better be careful, I think the geth called for reinforcements," Joker announces over the comm. I think this is where the cutscene was in the game.

And right on cue, Wrex calls from the gunner's seat, "Incoming!"

The ground shakes a bit as the dropship completes its high speed approach and deploys its troops without even slowing down. At least, I don't think it slowed down, judging by the sound of it.

"What the hell is that?" Shepard starts weaving the Mako around like crazy. I have no idea what she's talking about, because I can't see. All I know is that when I look on my omni-tool's radar, it shows something really, _really_ big. What the hell? All it was supposed to drop was an armature and a couple of troopers!

Wrex in the turret is roaring with krogan fury as he unleashes hell on the geth outside - at least, I hope that's what he's doing, though how well he can actually aim that gun with Shepard driving like a drunk rhino is anyone's guess. Holy shit, this shouldn't be this difficult. In the game, all the geth had were a couple of snipers and rocket troopers and a single armature. There should be plenty of cover to go around...

The Mako slows down, and for a moment, all that can be heard over the radio is Shepard's heavy breathing and Wrex's battlecry. Then there's a huge bang outside, and it sounds like the hull's being struck by a hundred different pieces of shrapnel. Oh fuck, I think our cover just went boom. Shepard hits the accelerator again.

But as good - or crazy - as Shepard's driving is, our luck can't hold forever.

And it doesn't.

"Brace for impact!"

Right after Shepard's warning comes over the line, the Mako rocks heavily to the side as the armor is struck. And suddenly I'm looking out a fucking _hole_ in the side of the tank at the outside.

What the _fuck_?

I mean, there's a _hole_ in the _tank_. Two inch thick armor plating that can withstand Shepard bouncing around on sharp, pointy rocks and getting shot by geth rocket troopers - to a point, anyway - and all other kinds of heavy ordnance that would otherwise utterly annihilate us, and a single shot from that armature? A second shot rocks the vehicle, and I look over at Garrus.

The Mako skids sideways and comes to a halt as Shepard swears from the driver's seat, and I can hear warning klaxons going off. Wrex is uncharacteristically silent as the main gun just keeps firing. The ground rocks and splatters up as it explodes close by, close enough that I can see it through the hole in the wall.

Did I mention there's a fucking _hole_ in the fucking _Mako_?

"Everyone out, _now_!" Shepard orders as she leaps out of the cockpit. Garrus and I quickly unstrap and hop out through the big hole in the armor. Once outside, I let out a low whistle. _Dayum_. I can see why she stopped. That second shot hit the engine block and probably half of the mass effect field generators around the vehicle. It barely missed the cockpit, and the entire front ducktail of the Mako? Yeah, it's kind of gone now. It's not going anywhere till we fix that. Or replace it. As we hug the side of the tank for cover from the small arms fire pinging off its hull all around us, I chance a peek around the side of the vehicle.

Oh, _fuck_.

Now I know why there's a giant hole in the Mako. That's not an armature, that's a fucking _colossus_. What the hell is a colossus doing here, this was supposed to be an armature! It rears back, its head-mounted laser charging for a blast as Wrex's fire from the main turret just pings off its shields. Oh crap, it's getting ready for a big one.

"Wrex, get out of that turret! That's an _order_!" Shepard screams into her radio as he stubbornly keeps pouring fire into its shields.

Goddammit, that crazy krogan is going to get himself killed. The Mako's gun barrel is smoking and glowing red now. I think Wrex took the damn overheat safeties off. He's growling over the comms as he bull-headedly keeps firing. Shit, this wasn't in the damn script, this was supposed to be an armature, not a goddamn fucking colossus. My omni-tool screen blinks to life on my command. Hacking an armature is one thing, but a colossus? It won't be as easy as jamming its command and control signals, because that thing carries a signal booster stronger than anything I can put out.

But maybe...

I initiate the hack, and my Cerberus-provided cyberwarfare software goes to work. Come on, come on...

Shepard's still screaming at Wrex, Garrus is taking potshots at the troopers and destroyers around us. And me? I'm staring at a tiny, orange holographic screen, waiting for the proverbial status bar to fill.

The bar inches forward.

Wrex keeps shooting.

The colossus braces itself as its eye glows with coalescing energy. It fires, and all three of us hit the ground and shield our eyes, hoping that, somehow, by some miracle, the beam will _not _turn us into molten puddles of goo. There's heat, and I can't breathe for a long, terrifying moment as the smell of burnt and molten steel clogs my airways.

My ears are ringing from the impossibly loud crack of superheated particles expanding and displacing air at supersonic speeds, of metal being super-heated and exploding.

And then all is silent. The Mako's gun is no longer firing.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

I'm surprised I'm even still alive. Next to me, Garrus groans as he rolls over onto his back, blinking rapidly. Shepard was thrown a little ways away from the blast, but she's stirring.

And on my wrist, my omni-tool pings, announcing that it's completed the hack.

Holy...fuck. The entire front half of the Mako is a smoldering ruin, slagged beyond anyone's ability to fix. Goddammit, this whole thing reminds me way too much of the ending to Mass Effect 3 for my comfort. Shepard's tapping the side of her helmet, but I'm not hearing anything. Our radios are probably fried. I just shake my head at her and remove my helmet. She does the same.

"Are you all right?" she shouts.

"I'm...I'm good." I think. Maybe. Did I mention that it's a miracle we're even still alive?

I'm not going to tell her, but that's a lie. I'm shaking like a leaf, and it's all I can do to not just retch all over the place. The smell...it's cloying, nauseating. I wonder if Wrex is even bothered by...Wrex!

Fuck, he was in the turret. I look over at Shepard, then at the wreck of the Mako, and we both have the same thought at the same time. We start scrambling for it, ignoring the glowing-hot metal that still runs along the ground. The turret's no longer on top of the tank, having sunk into the main chassis when the supporting structure failed, exploded, and melted. The barrel is molten and twisted, sheared off halfway. It's all just a pile of molten wreckage now, and my stomach turns.

As tough as Wrex is, there's no way he survived a direct hit from the colossus's main cannon, even behind the turret's armor. Fuck, this wasn't supposed to happen. No one's supposed to _die_ here. Shepard starts just lifting what she can off the wreck. I'm on my way to help her, when a shadow falls over us. I look up in some form of morbid curiosity, and immediately wish I hadn't, because the colossus is now moving to stand over us.

Fuck.

"Shepard!" I yell at her, but she barely acknowledges me as she continues to dig.

Shit. I hit my comms, switching it to the main frequency we share with the _Normandy_, and pray it's still working. "_Normandy_, come in, _Normandy_, do you read?"

There's a burst of static. Garrus has already moved into the wreckage in an attempt to hide, and I press myself against the rear wheel well. If I hold still, maybe it won't see me...

"Ground team, this is _Normandy_, over. What the hell is going on down there?"

Thank heavens for Cerberus over-engineered combat radios. Joker, I've never been more glad to hear your voice. "_Normandy_, we've got a really freaking big hostile down here. Need a strafing run on our coordinates. We don't have the ordnance to take it out."

"Negative, Lieutenant, where's the Commander?"

I look over at Shepard, who's stilled the moment the colossus came closer. I signal her, indicating my comm. She just shakes her head and mimes that hers is dead. Great. I tune back into Joker. "Joker, the Commander's comm is dead. We just got hit by a huge freaking beam laser, and if you don't hit this area within the next minute, we're all going to be toast!"

There's a long pause. "All right. Give me the target."

"Give me a second. I'll attach a transponder to it." I reach for my utility belt and fumble around for a flat, palm-sized disk with a magnetic clamp on one side and an activation switch on the other. Yeah, I know utility belts aren't exactly standard-issue, either. And technically, I was supposed to save these beacons for marking survey sites for later Cerberus acquisition, if we came across any ore- or mineral-rich sites.

Shepard slides into cover next to me. "That Joker?" she asks.

"Yeah. I've called them in for an air strike. I just hope that pilot of yours has really good aim." At this point, I have no idea how this is going to play out, because this sure as hell wasn't in the game.

She looks down at the signal beacon. I can already tell what she's wanting to do, but my tactical cloak will let me get closer to the colossus than she could. She can't charge through its shields. It's too fast to pass through a kinetic barrier. Someone's gonna have to run it through. "Just keep it busy, Commander," I tell her as I vault out of cover and hit my tactical cloak.

It fizzles, and I look down.

Oh, fuck.

I don't think getting shot by a giant laser beam was good for it. I look over my shoulder to catch Shepard's eye, and before she can do anything, I take off running towards the colossus.

"Lieutenant!" she yells after me, but I ignore her. Man, I really gotta have a death wish, because I'm wearing light armor and running at a geth colossus. But there's no time to think, just time to act, and something tells me that it's now or nothing.

"Keep it off me!"

The colossus is looking down between its legs now, trying to track my movement, but its proximity works in my favor. I can move out of its line of sight faster than it can turn its head and body to track me, and I scramble between its two front legs. It's backing up, trying to get a bead on me when a round from Garrus's sniper rifle impacts its shields. It looks up, then back down at me.

I don't suppose this omni-tool has a grappling hook? No, didn't think so. Damn, why do I feel like Luke Skywalker looking up at the belly of that fucking AT-AT? Only, like, with no grappling hook, no lightsaber, and no Force on my side. And a big giant killer robot about to stomp me into oblivion.

A series of shotgun and biotic blasts hit the colossus, and this time, its attention turns to the new threat as Shepard's barrage actually threatens to cripple its shields. I chance a glance back at her, and suppress an awed whistle. She's standing on top of the smoking wreckage of the Mako, wielding her shotgun one-handed, and throwing shockwaves with the other. It ambles forward, ignoring me in favor of the greater threat, and Shepard takes off, Charging towards a nearby geth trooper. The unfortunate geth crumbles beneath her assault, but she doesn't even notice or check to see if it's still active, instead Charging towards the next target she can see.

Garrus's sniper rounds still ping off its armor, but the colossus ignores him and gives chase. Well, as best as a giant six-legged killer robot can, anyway. I look up as its huge body passes overhead. Crap, there's no way I can throw the beacon that high. Time to pull one from the movies, then, I guess.

The outside of the legs are way too smooth for me to grab onto, and unlike in the movies, the armor plating actually extends all the way around and up. Well, crud. Okay, new plan. I don't have a rope to sling it up there. No magnetic grapples, no...wait a second.

Is geth armor even ferromagnetic? Hell, I don't really have a better idea as I run to keep pace underneath the colossus as it chases after Shepard. It's actually getting really close to her. Garrus has given up shooting the colossus and is picking off geth troopers that are targeting the Commander now. It takes a few seconds of scrabbling around my armor, but I finally manage to detach the mag-clamps that hold the weapons in place. All right, let's see if this works.

I activate one using the pressure switch on it - the one usually depressed by a weapon being pushed against it - and hold it against the colossus's leg. It whirrs for a second and engages. It doesn't hold. Fuck. Double fuck. Turns out geth armor _isn't_ magnetic. All right, new plan. Keep the damn thing still so Joker can hit a stationary beacon. I reach for my radio to inform Shepard and Garrus, but then remember that their comms are fried. Dammit.

All right. The colossus is chasing Shepard. If I can get her to circle around and then Charge towards me right as Joker comes in to hit the beacon...

"Joker, come in. Repeat, _Normandy_, come in," I shout into my radio as I thumb on the beacon.

"I read the beacon, Lieutenant. Are we clear for launch?"

Looking over at Shepard bouncing between geth like a demented ping-pong ball, all the while chased by a giant killer robot with a big honking laser? And I'm about to call in an airstrike on our position? It's a fucking crazy idea. "Yeah, we're live. Go ahead and start your run. Be aware the signal location may shift."

"Copy. ETA ninety seconds."

Before he's even finished speaking, I make a mad dash for Shepard. All we've got to do is keep it still for a few seconds within the next ninety seconds. Cakewalk, right? Shit, Shepard and Garrus slipped up. He shot a target she was going to Charge to, costing her precious seconds to find a new one.

Before she can, before I can reach her, before my pistol's even out, the colossus is there, bearing down on her, ready to pounce with its front legs and bring its eye-mounted laser to bear.

Fuck, fuck fuck fuck.

It rears back.

And the thunderous report of a shotgun fills the air, along with an angry krogan warcry.

The colossus stumbles slightly from the sheer impact of the rounds against its kinetic barrier as Wrex, in best Terminator fashion, stumbles out of the wreckage of the Mako, his armor charred, dented, and melted to slag, but his shotgun never stopping.

Holy crap, that's one powerful shotgun if it can stagger a colossus. That's my first thought. My second one is, holy _crap_, Wrex is _alive_!

And the geth can't decide which target to attack as its head swivels between Wrex and Shepard. Hell yeah, with both of them here, the damn thing doesn't stand a _chance_!

"ETA, sixty seconds."

All right, time to _move_! I dash beneath its legs, signaling to Shepard. I think she gets the message, because she starts circling around, trying to make her way towards Wrex so they can keep it pinned down between them as I break out into a dead run towards her.

"ETA, thirty seconds."

I skid to a halt next to her as their two shotguns find some sort of weird rhythm in their firing. The colossus is heading towards us now.

"ETA, fifteen seconds."

It's stopped and is bracing itself as its flashlight head tilts forward to take aim at us. I haul back and launch the beacon with all the force I can muster towards it. Fuck a direct hit, if the _Normandy_'s torpedoes can take out space ships, they can take out this damn colossus. It clatters to the ground right between its front legs.

"ETA, ten seconds. Hold tight, Commander."

Shepard, seeing the colossus prepare to fire its main weapon, ceases fire and ducks behind a rock for cover. Not that it'll do much good from a hit from its gun, but I guess there's not much else to do. She grabs my radio and yells into it.

"Go faster, Joker, or there won't _be_ an us to hold tight!"

"Five seconds, Commander. Danger close."

"We don't _have _five seconds!"

The colossus fires, and once again its laser strikes the target with a high-pitched screech as I shield my eyes and the world around me goes red. My ears are filled with an earth-shattering roar and a tremendous, bone-jarring boom. The shockwave from the explosion drives all air not only from my lungs, but the immediate area around us as we all hit the ground.

And then it all goes dark.

T

"Lieutenant! Lieutenant, wake up."

Ouch, my head hurts. I groan and blink against the bright light and Shepard's face swims into view. Holy crap, why is it so bright outside? I open my mouth, but nothing seems to want to come out, until...

"How long was I out?"

Wonderful. I wake up from a geth colossus laser blast that should've killed us - or, alternatively, a strafing run from a frigate using anti-capitalship weaponry so close by that _it_ should have killed us - and the first thing I ask is not, _how am I still alive_, or _am I dead_, but _how long was I out_? Man, my priorities are fucked up.

"A minute or so," Shepard responds. Hey, I think I'm getting my hearing back. She's starting to sound less muffled. Behind her, Garrus is salvaging what medi-gel he can from the Mako's wreck, while Wrex is poking at damaged areas of his armor. Shepard herself doesn't seem to look so bad, considering out near miss.

"What the hell happened?" I look over her shoulder at the crater where the colossus once stood. "I'm taking it since we're here and that thing isn't, we won?"

She chuckles lightly and nods, using the back of her hand to wipe a strand of hair from her eyes. "That we did, Lieutenant. Nice throw, by the way."

"Yeah, it was one of my better ones." Thank god for Miranda's physical training regimen. If that beacon had landed any closer, we would've all been toast.

"We're lucky it missed us with that last shot," she says, and jerks her head towards a giant trench carved into the ground maybe five meters away from us. No kidding.

"Looks like we got real lucky there."

Shepard looks at me again. It's that weird look, that _I know you had something to do with this_ look. "You wouldn't happen to know how it missed us at practically point blank range, now, would you, Lieutenant?"

"Who, me?" I give her my best impression of an innocent look. "Nah."

I can tell she isn't buying it, though, because she just slaps me on the shoulder and grins. "Too bad. Would've bought you a drink." Without waiting for my reply, she just gets up and walks over to Wrex.

Huh. I look over at the trench again, and an involuntary shudder goes through me as it just hits me how close we came to dying. Multiple times. But seeing that big hole carved out of the ground? Yeah, it really drives home what kind of weapon we were up against. Guess I can tell Miranda that their cyberwarfare approach works pretty dang well. After talking to her about the fact that Saren is working with geth, we both decided that Cerberus should invest resources in producing more advanced hacking and cyberwarfare support packages.

Turns out that introducing a single decimal-digit error in a targeting calculation is a heck of a lot easier than trying to hack the entire targeting system. But still...that second decimal? It still only made it miss us by...well, not a whole lot. Best to just stop thinking about it. I pat myself down to check for injuries. Good, nothing feels broken or bleeding, but I'm willing to bet I'm gonna have quite the collection of bruises in the morning.

Garrus is actually done searching through the Mako now, and brings the medi-gel containers over to Wrex. Like a typical krogan, though, he refuses. That's right, krogan find scars sexy. The bigger the scar, the bigger his epeen, apparently. As I reach them, Wrex looks up at me. Oh shit, not again. I'm really not in the mood for this again...

"Not bad for someone who skulks around like a vorcha," he finally says.

"Uh...thanks, I guess?"

He starts laughing out of the blue. So does Shepard, actually. Both of them just laughing like maniacs. Finally, Wrex manages to form a semi-coherent sentence.

"I haven't had that much fun since the Trelimean War," he manages between bouts of laughter. I look over at Garrus, and he seems just as confused as I am.

Looking at Shepard and Wrex sitting there, patching up each other's armor to restore some semblance of combat-readiness, though, it's not a bad feeling, really. We came out of this damn mess _alive_. All of us. And it wasn't even in the fucking script. Hell, maybe I _can_ do this.

So I just meet Garrus's eye and shrug.

That's Shepard for you, all right.

T

Since our ride's busted, we have to hike the last bit to the prothean ruins. Not that it is very far, but walking through hostile territory while half your squad's not in peak condition? Yeah, well, let's just say that I may be paranoid, but that doesn't mean the geth aren't out there to get me. Better jumping at shadows than dead.

The entrance to the ruins is eerily quiet, with the only illumination coming from our omni-tool flashlights and helmet lights Although, Shepard and me both discarded our helmets, since they were too badly wrecked to use anymore after that episode with the colossus. It's kind of unsettling, you'd think someone would have thought to attach a flashlight and all sorts of other optics to these guns. Although, I guess that'd make the whole folding up thing rather more difficult. At this point, I'd rather have a flashlight and laser sight than a folding gun, personally. There's a couple of geth down the corridor, but nothing that's really exciting. Garrus and I don't even get to shoot, because Shepard and Wrex Charge before we can draw a bead, and it's all over by the time we're ready to pull the trigger.

Well, looks like his near-death experience and almost getting blown up in the Mako's turret hasn't bothered Wrex any. We head onto a catwalk, shooting more geth as we go along, through more tunnels, and finally into the elevator. All the way down. Dang, this thing goes fast compared to the ones on the Citadel and the _Normandy_. There's a little bit of platforming, more shooting of geth, and finally...

"Can you hear me out there? I'm trapped, I need help!"

And there she is, just like in the game, suspended in that weird force field. Ah yes, now I remember. She tripped some kind of prothean security system. How very Star Trek-esque. I mean, random force fields? Really?

"Are you Dr. T'Soni?" Shepard asks, stepping as close to the field as she dares. Hell, she even reaches out to touch it before any of us can do more than open our mouths. Fortunately, nothing happens, and we all let out a collective sigh of relief. That's the _last_ thing we need now...for Shepard to get trapped in there with Liara. Or like, electrocuted, or something. I know it's not supposed to happen like that, but hell, you never know.

"Yes. I was studying these ruins when I must have tripped this security system by accident," she answers. Her voice is just as flat as it is in the game.

I can tell by the way Shepard is eyeing her weapon that she's wondering if she could possibly shoot her way through it. Time to step in. There's too many instances in movies that I've seen where that was just a terrible idea. And while this isn't a movie, knowing Q's sense of humor, it probably could be one. "I don't think that's a good idea, Commander. If it's able to contain Dr. T'Soni's biotics, it'll probably stand up to small-arms fire."

"He's right," Liara agrees with me. "You will have to find another way into the structure. The force field blocks off this entire section of the building, but it only seems to protect this level. Perhaps if you could find another entrance, on one of the lower floors..."

Shepard questions her a bit more and learns about the mercs in the ruins with us, but ultimately, her pragmatism prevails. I tend to agree...talking beyond basic introductions can wait until we're out of here. This place kind of creeps me out, actually. All eerie and quiet, with that stale air that tells you nothing living has been around for a _very_ long time.

"I saw a mining laser a little ways back. We could use that to cut through the bulkheads and get to Dr. T'Soni," Garrus suggests. "It looked serviceable, but we'll have to find a few parts. And recalibrate it."

Figures Garrus would zero in on the recalibration. "I don't know...that mining laser could potentially destabilize this entire area," I caution. Yeah, I remember what happens when you turn it on. Big freaking earthquake. "Not that I'm against getting Dr. T'Soni out of there, but we should be careful. No point in getting her out if it kills all of us in the process. Plus, there's the mercs still around."

Am I scared at the prospect of facing a krogan battlemaster? Kinda. But hell, we've got _Wrex_ with us. That wannabe doesn't stand a _chance_.

"He's right," Wrex agrees, surprisingly. "Perhaps there is a way to shut off the field."

Shepard looks at each of us. "The point is moot till we either come across a security access, or a replacement focusing lens for that mining laser. Either way, there's only one way to go."

And that's deeper into the facility. It's really weird; I was expecting events to be much closer to the game than they are, even with my presence disrupting the script, so to speak. But while the overall event is the same, the details of it are...well, different. I wonder if this is Q's doing, to limit my ability to use my knowledge of details to make things easier? I'm guessing having me waltz through every area and know exactly where every enemy is would've been too easy. Still, I have to wonder what the point of all this is. I mean, aside from all that vague, _show the Continuum you're worthy as a race_ bullshit.

We proceed further into the facility, shooting geth and the occasional merc as we trudge along. Sometimes we even see mercs shooting at geth. As much as I hate getting in a firefight, it's actually a relief to see something that's not _dead_, for a change. Well, at least they're usually not dead until after we're done with them. Still, it's nice to know we're not the only ones down here. Although, I have to wonder, how the hell do the lights still work fifty thousand years after the protheans got wiped out?

You know Shepard's penchant for gratuitous destruction that I mention earlier? Turns out that despite my warnings, after we ran into the mining control post that conveniently had not only spare parts for the mining laser, but also its activation codes, there was no talking her out of using the damn thing. Earthquake be damned, she almost _skipped_ back to the laser, grinning like a maniac. And I swear, when she turned it on? You'd almost have thought someone gave her a rock the size of an ostrich egg for her birthday. Or a new rifle.

Considering that this is Shepard, I think she'd probably rather have the rifle, than the diamond, actually. A deep, ground-shaking rumble later, and, just like in that the Hammer Station Flashpoint from The Old Republic, we have ourselves a nice little hole dug all the way through the perimeter wall of the prothean compound. Shepard's already stepping into the still-glowing hot rock and heading down the tunnel, Wrex on her heels. Goddammit, wait up, you two crazy people!

I look at Garrus and shrug, before running after them. There, at the bottom of the tower, is the elevator shaft that'll lead us right up to Liara. Okay, so far, so good. Nothing really surprising other than that colossus incident out front, but it still has me nervous. It's the little details that are different from my playthrough that have me on edge. I never really bought into the whole hairs standing up on the back of my neck thing, but believe me, right now, they're standing up. Almost as if something's about to happen.

Like, right now.

The elevator doors open - how does an ancient prothean elevator still work, anyway? Hell, shouldn't the materials exposed to atmosphere, corrosion, and all sorts of other nasty stuff have decayed away by now? Never mind, that's 20th century thinking. I forget that these days they make shit out of crazy materials like permacrete and all sorts of alloys that don't crumble with age. And no cables on the elevators, thank the heavens, it's all mass effect fields.

And there she is, in all her blue-ish glory. Liara T'Soni, archeologist and prothean expert extraordinaire. Or, she will be, at least, by the time this is over. Despite her earlier brief conversation with Shepard, she seems nonplussed to actually see us here.

"Commander! How did you..."

Shepard just jabs a thumb over her shoulder in that carefree manner of hers. I swear, she could almost be a scoundrel. It's like she took lessons from Han Solo, or something. Yeah, I'm never sitting in on one of her poker games. Ever. "We found a mining laser outside and got it to work."

"You...what?" Liara seems confused for a moment. "Oh, the old excavation equipment. Are you sure that was wise, Commander? The original expedition considered the area too tectonically unstable to further dig. The slightest-"

And right on cue, there's a deep rumble as the entire place shakes.

I hate it when I'm right sometimes.

You know how in earthquakes you're supposed to stay inside and cover your head, because outside something could fall on you? Well, try being _inside_ and _twenty_ stories off the ground, and _you'll_ be the thing falling on other people's heads. It's not a good feeling, because the entire floor doesn't just shake, it actually _sways_ from side to side. The tower just bends and creaks under our feet as the ground rumbles ominously.

Oh shit. I _knew _using that laser was a bad idea.

At least the earthquake shut down the force field.

Apparently, Shepard has the same thought. "Okay, talk later, let's move! Move, move, move!" Since we can't go _down_ the elevator, she races for the ladder in the corner of the room - huh, was that there in the game? - and heads up. Makes sense. Get to the roof, radio the _Normandy_ for an emergency pickup, and get the hell out of here. There's some weird interference down here that prevents all of us from contacting the _Normandy_. Crap. On the other hand, if Shepard thought of it, odds are, everyone else in the building probably did, too.

And that means the geth and the mercs. Oh boy. Showdown with a krogan battlemaster, anyone? Well, I'm not sure if the geth have any kind of self-preservation protocol. Fortunately, we don't run into anyone on our way up...so either everyone's dead - which is getting increasingly likely as we keep running into dead mercs and geth - or whoever survived made it up before us.

Speaking of survivors...as we all skid to a halt on the rooftop, the edges of which are crumbling way from seismic activity, there he is. Just as scary as he was in the game and twice as ugly. I forget his name, but it doesn't really matter. Shepard doesn't even have to say anything - Garrus and I are diving for cover amidst the rubble, while Wrex has his shotgun out and is charging alongside her. I end up stuck behind a boulder with Liara.

"Hope you can fight, Doc," I say to her as my sniper rifle unfolds, "because this is gonna get real ugly, real fast."

Turns out I was right, because that krogan battlemaster isn't alone. A half-dozen of his merc buddies are dug in right behind him, and before either Garrus or I can put any rounds downrange, we're sent scrambling back behind cover. Cover that, I might add, is rapidly degrading under automatic weapons fire. Rocks are _not_ good cover, at least not in the long term.

I catch a brief glimpse of Shepard, her shield sparking from the incoming weapons fire, slamming right into the krogan, before I'm forced to duck back into cover or eat a mouthful of lead as my shields drop to next to nothing during the moment I'm exposed. Times like these really make me wish I'd gotten good enough with an assault rifle to use one. Heck, I'd go for a minigun right about now. Anything to put down suppressive fire, really.

Okay, that sniper rifle won't be much use right now. And my Karpov only has seven shots in it before it needs to vent. With Wrex and Shepard in the melee, I can't lob a flashbang, and Liara's biotics can't do anything without line of sight, so-

Oh, nevermind. I forgot you could angle biotic powers and curve them around corners. Apparently, that not only works in the game, but in reality, as well, because our resident asari manages to snatch one of the mercs from behind cover. He's now flailing helplessly in mid-air. Garrus is leaning out to take the shot, and I instinctively flinch as his shields collapse right as he drops back into cover. Holy crap, if his turian shields can barely take that kind of beating, my paper shields aren't gonna do jack shit. And my cloak is down.

Plan B, then. Which, y'know, would be great and all, if I _had_ a Plan B.

Okay, think. I've done this before. Well...in video games, I have. Not Mass Effect, though. My Shepard was always either a vanguard or an engineer. I can't Charge, I don't have melee shields, and I don't have a combat drone. Dammit, where's Tali when you need her? Gotta do something the enemy isn't expecting. Something unpredictable, something crazy. I chance a peek only to see Shepard slugging it out with that krogan battlemaster. Okay, nothing _that_ crazy. Oh fuck. I duck back into cover when the krogan actually counter-charges Shepard and sends her flying.

Like, right into our cover. Her shields and biotic barriers are a hell of a lot more solid than the rubble me and Liara are hiding behind, so you can guess what happens.

Double fuck.

Liara's quick with her barrier, but not quite quick enough to prevent my shields from dropping down and a three round burst hits me square in the chest. It knocks me flat on my ass and makes it real hard to breathe. I think I may have bruised a rib, or something, but at least I'm still alive and breathing, and not gargling in my own blood, so I don't think my armor was breached.

I roll to my feet, dragging Shepard with me while she recovers. The barrier's shrinking as Liara fights to keep it from faltering under the barrage of fire. Fortunately, the fact that we drew all the mercs' fire has two effects that turn the tide for us.

One, Garrus is no longer pinned down, and free to take shots.

And two, because the barrier is transparent, _I_ am now free to take shots. My rifle's out and extended almost by reflex now as I hurry to draw a bead on my first target. Next to me, Liara collapses to one knee under the strain.

_Crack_.

With an easy pull of the trigger, the human merc drops dead. I move on to the next target. Three of them against four of us, I'm liking these odds more. Much more. Liara's barrier finally collapses, and I drop my rifle and cover her as Garrus takes his final shot, and Shepard Charges out from next to us at a hapless merc, sending him flying over the edge of the roof.

As for Wrex? He's spent this entire time having fun slugging it out with the other krogan. At least, I think he's having fun. Judging from the way he's whaling on his opponent, he's winning by quite a bit.

"You all right?" I ask Liara as she makes her way to her feet.

"Yes. Thank you."

Shepard and Garrus are sweeping the area for the last merc, and with an almighty roar, Wrex gives the other krogan a headbutt he'll probably never forget. Hell, that hurt just from _looking_ at it. The krogan stumbles, and Wrex slams the butt of his shotgun across his face before bringing it to bear in one smooth motion and pulling the trigger, sending him off the roof with a giant hole in his chest.

Damn, that was...kinda cool, actually. Disturbingly so, but cool nonetheless. Man, I knew there was a reason I liked Wrex. Kinda like Zaeed, there's just this...utter sense of sheer badassery that surrounds him. Like he'll kick ass and be back in time for lunch. Do krogan even eat lunch?

Okay, getting side-tracked there. Shepard and Garrus still haven't found the last merc, but I'm not too worried about him right now, because the ground's shaking again. Time to get the hell out of here. "Commander!" I yell over the rumble. "Maybe we should call for pickup!"

"Go!" she orders. Oh, right, her radio's still fried.

I key my omni-tool. "Joker!" I yell into it to be heard over the progressively louder trembling. Is it me, or is the earthquake getting worse? "Dammit, Joker, if you don't reply this instant, I'm going to space your entire fucking Fornax collection!"

"What the hell are you people doing down there?"

"We've got a fucking earthquake that's pulling down the building we're on, we need pickup, pronto!"

"On my way." There's a slight pause. "By the way, how the hell do you know about..._that_?"

"That's for me to know and you to find out, Moreau. Double time it!"

"On my way."

You know, I take back what I said about the Mako ride. As terrifying as that was, standing on top of a really, _really_ tall building while the ground is shaking and you can see cracks in the earth open up below, while your floor is swaying, literally, all over the place because the earthquake is so strong it's twisting the building? Yeah, the Mako has nothing on this. At all.

It doesn't take long for the _Normandy_ to arrive on her second atmo run, but it sure seemed like forever. Joker hovers the ship as close as he can to the building, but even so, with the way it's been bending all over the place like a wet noodle, he's at least five meters away from the edge. Liara's going first, taking a running leap and using her biotics to carry herself over. Garrus is next, and he lands on the deck of the open loading ramp with a thud.

Wrex taking a running leap is like watching a fucking freight train gain speed. When he lands on the deck, he actually leaves a goddamn _dent_. Holy cow.

And then it's just Shepard and me.

The building rocks a little more, then suddenly drops a good two feet or so as the ground below it caves in. Fuck. That was...intense. It takes only a second for Joker to adjust the altitude, and we're ready to make a running leap for the ship. We take off at the same time, but man, Shepard is _fast_. She pulls ahead a little, and I watch her kick off the edge of the roof about two steps ahead of me. She lands easily.

My turn. I push off as hard as I can, reaching out...there's no way I can jump as far as Shepard, but I make the loading ramp, my chest slamming into the deck _hard_. The deck is grated, so I've got something to hold on to, but my grip slips and I slide almost half a meter down the ramp when something lands and clings to my legs, pulling me down further. What the hell?

I look down and freeze.

That last merc Shepard and Garrus never found?

Yeah, I just found him.

Hanging on to my feet. Fuck, he must've jumped right after me. I keep slipping down the deck, but my downwards movement is halted when Shepard and Garrus grip my arms and start pulling me up. I can't look away from that merc. The faceplate on his helmet is shattered, probably from falling against something. His hand reaches for his weapon. I don't know why. He's deliberately letting go with one hand.

Maybe a last act of spite, seeing how my crewmates are pulling me up? That I won't plunge to my death with him? I just react. My pistol is out and pointed at him before he's finished his own draw. I pull the trigger right as Joker hits the thrusters, jerking up the ship harshly, sending the man falling to his death.

And the last thing I see before I black out for the second time is his terrified face.


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's Note:** Well, here's the next installment. A brief shoutout to TheRev, who's settled into college nicely, all the best to him there, and I'm hoping to see more of WttF soon. On to chapter ten, I hope you enjoy!

**Chapter Ten**

I'm falling...my grip on the deck plating is slipping, and this time there's no hands to grab hold of me, to pull me to safety. I slip off and fall into the blackness, into nothingness. I can't scream, because the space around me is void of air. It's black, and dark, and oppressive, and it seems to go on forever.

There's a flash of light, and the slight smell of cordite, and a sudden pain in my chest. I look down, and somehow, even in the darkness, I can see the red stain spread across my chest. And then there's his face. It's everywhere. Haunting me. Now I know how Harry felt in those Spider-Man movies when the ghost of his father seems to be everywhere around him.

I can see his face again, but there's no wind howling around us, no ominous rumbling of the ground. Just him and me, clinging to the _Normandy_'s deck plating for dear life.

And this time, we're both falling.

And then I wake up with a wordless scream.

The _Normandy_'s med-bay. I think. At least, I can't think of any other place that'd smell so...sterile. Which, considering the fact that the air onboard is filtered continually and recycled who knows how many times, is saying something. Plus, I'm definitely not in my bunk, and other than Shepard's quarters, I can't think of another place on this ship that might have a bed in it. And these are _definitely_ not Shepard's quarters.

"Ah, our sleeper awakens."

It's Chakwas's soothing contralto, with her slight British accent. It's funny, really, I've been on the ship for only what, a day, maybe? Yeah, about a day before our deployment to Therum, and already it feels like I've been here for ages. Certainly long enough that it makes me wonder how I haven't run into the good doctor any sooner.

"Hey, doc," I croak out. Dang, my throat feels dry. How long have I been laying here, anyway? We must be far away from Therum by now. Probably halfway across the 'verse. Wonder if we're going to Feros or Noveria next? Either way, neither is going to be too pleasant. Rachni or thorianized colonists and one _ugly_ motherfrakking plant.

Chakwas fingers her penlight that seems to be a staple of doctors everywhere, no matter what the century, and shines it into my eyes. I flinch away from it, but she seems satisfied with my pupil response. "How are you feeling, Lieutenant?"

"To be honest? Not too badly, all things considered." And it's the truth. Aside from a lingering bruise to my breastbone, the only other thing that's bruised is my pride. Hell, my first mission with Shepard and I pass out not only once, but _twice_. Granted, I couldn't really help the first one, being so close to the _Normandy_'s ordnance and all, but still...Not exactly the first impression I wanted to make.

"Good, your condition wasn't too serious when you were brought in. More to do with neuro-psychotic stress rather than physical injuries, I presume."

"Neuro-what?" Wait a minute, is she saying..."Doc, are you telling me I'm neurotic? What the hell from?"

"Not neurotic per se," she corrects me gently as she puts her datapad back down. "But I think there's some issues that have been causing you undue stress. Perhaps it would be wise if you saw a counselor?"

"I got no idea what you're talking about, doc. I'm not having any kinds of stress. Well, outside from the normal combat-related stuff. I'm sure it'll pass." What the heck does she mean, I have issues? Okay, no need to get all defensive about it. She's probably just diagnosing symptoms she's familiar with. I'm sure it's nothing. "Look, doc," I hold out the proverbial olive branch, "I'm sure it was just the mission. Almost getting blown up by a giant robot and then clinging to a building for dear life will do that to you."

She looks at me skeptically, as if daring me to tell her to her face that I don't believe her, but then just shrugs. "Perhaps you are correct, Lieutenant. In any case, I don't see any reason to keep you here any longer. May I suggest that you head to the mess hall for a bite to eat and then retire for the night? The Commander has scheduled a debriefing first thing tomorrow morning at 0700."

"Sounds good, doc." I slide off the bed and head for the door. Which, like, is literally only two steps away. Dang, I forgot how cramped the original _Normandy_'s med bay is. It's even smaller than that of the refit Cerberus version. "Oh, and doc? Thanks."

"You're quite welcome, Lieutenant. And if you ever do want to talk..."

"I know where to find you, got it."

The door closes behind me with a soft pneumatic hiss, and I trudge over to the mess hall. On second thought, maybe I'll shower and freshen up before I do anything. I may only wear light armor, but hell, you try being stuck in this thing all day and see how _you_ smell. Popping into my bunk to grab a change of clothes and head for the showers first, then. Dang, that feels good.

And it's not a crazy sonic shower like on Star Trek, or anything. It's a real, honest-to-goodness water shower. How they manage to find rationed water for showers on a military ship, I got no idea. I mean, it's not like we're swimming in an ocean full of the stuff they can just scoop up and purify, right?

By the time I get out, I'm feeling a little more alive and awake. Probably too awake for the time of night, because a glance at the shipboard chrono tells me that it's the middle of the night - 0100 hours. But my stomach's insistent growling reminds me that I haven't actually eaten anything since...well, since before the briefing this morning.

At this time, the mess is deserted. About what I expected, really...the _Normandy_ only carries a small crew to begin with - total crew complement of thirty-two, if I remember right - and only a handful of them are on the night-shift. Hell, I bet even Joker's sleeping right now. I grab two sandwiches from the vending machines along with a bottle of some sort of electrolyte drink, and settle down at one of the tables.

This being a warship, there's no fancy windows or view ports. Nah, those only came when Cerberus rebuilt the ship into a bit more of a luxury vessel. Too bad, I'd kinda have liked just being able to sit here and watch the stars go by, or something while I munch on my late night snack. The sandwiches aren't bad, to be honest. Kind of taste like turkey. A little dry, but that's probably because they've been sitting there all day. That drink, on the other hand...

"Yeaaaach, yuck, what the heck?" I spit what little sip I took back into the bottle. Hell, that was terrible. I stare at the strange pink label, trying to will myself to understand what the heck is written on there.

"I see you discovered some of our specialty items," an amused voice chuckles from the hatch. Seriously? I don't even have to look up to know it's Shepard. Like, is there some cosmic cliché that all Shepards have to be insomniac? Is it supposed to allow us to interact with her, alone? Or something?

"What the hell is this stuff?" I hold the bottle out to her.

Shepard just grins and fetches something of her own from the machines. "It's a dextro-/levo-compatible vitamin and mineral supplement. I don't think you _really_ want to know what's in there."

"No, probably not." I discreetly drop the bottle into the trash with the sandwich wrappers and grab a cup of water, instead. "What're you doing up so late, Commander? Can't sleep?"

"Just had a chat with Doctor Chakwas. She called me to let me know you were up and about." Her own midnight snack consists of a bag of chips and a bottle of something. At this point, I really don't want to guess.

Oh. Well, I guess that works. From the looks of it, she was probably getting comfortable in her quarters, too, because she's in fatigues. Granted, they're standard-issue N7 fatigues, but still, it's not a uniform. Her hair's also loose and not up and pinned back. "Sorry she had to wake you up, Commander," I mutter apologetically.

"No need," she waves it off amicably. "I like to know my crew's back on their feet. How're you doing, Grayson? Didn't think you took too nasty a bump down there."

I rub the back of my head in embarrassment. "Heh. Turns out I didn't, actually. Doc thinks it's some kind of post-traumatic stress or something. Just plain old combat stress, if you ask me. It was kind of rough down there."

"Not quite what you expected, was it?"

"I guess it was, but it wasn't..." I play with the empty plastic cup absently. "I knew what I got myself into when I signed up, but that was...a little more intense than I'd anticipated."

"You make it sound like that was your first combat deployment."

"No, I've been in combat before."Just not too often. But there's no need to advertise _that_ tidbit. "Wasn't exactly expecting that colossus of a geth platform to get the drop on us and almost deep-fry us. Still can't believe the damn thing managed to slag the Mako in a single shot. Hey, what'd Garrus have to say about the state of the Mako, anyway?"

Shepard actually laughs at that. "Oh, you'll be sorry you missed it, Grayson. I'm pretty sure Vakarian shed tears over that tank's demise. He only marginally perked up when I told him we were requisitioning a new one. It was priceless."

And I missed that? Garrus moping over the wreck of the Mako? Dammit! "You wouldn't have gotten a holo of that, by any chance?" I ask her hopefully.

"Afraid not."

"Damn." Oh well. I suppress a yawn as it tries to sneak by me. Shepard catches it anyway.

"I think you should catch some shut-eye. Long day tomorrow and briefing first thing at oh-seven. Our new friend Dr. T'Soni has a few interesting things to tell us, I think."

"Not a bad idea, Commander." I rise and throw her a sloppy salute. "Good night, ma'am."

T

I'm falling again, but this time I can hear the rush of air around me. It's still dark, but there's a bit of light on the horizon, almost as if the sun's just rising...or setting. I can barely make out the ground as it rushes closer to me. Then there's the whine of engines. I look up, to see the _Normandy_ streaking away into the sky, leaving me behind to fall.

The ground's coming closer. But it's creeping, not at all like freefall. And then I look down, and the ground's there, inching closer second by terrifying second, almost in slow motion. There's the realization that this is it...nothing to grab on to, no ship to swoop from the sky and save me, no hands to reach out and stop my fall.

And the ground comes closer still.

Suddenly, there's someone floating next to me. Upright, as if he was standing on something. But that's impossible, because I'm still falling. I look over. I'd recognize that face anywhere. It's been burned into my brain the moment I pulled the trigger. The whine of my pistol, the dull thud as the body hits the ground aboard _Bastion_. The look on his face, a mixture of fear and determination, reaching for his weapon despite the inevitable. And then all that remains is the cold, dead gaze in his eyes.

And the ground comes closer still.

I'm looking through a scope, sighting in. My target is standing in plain sight. I pull the trigger, watching his head explode in a shower of gore. But I can't forget the last expression on his face, so utterly unaware that his death was only an instant away. Forget for a moment that he's an N6. Forget for a moment that he's a soldier. In that one moment before I pull the trigger, he's a man, just like me. A man serving his planet, his nation, trying to protect others in his service and doing what is right. And I ended his life with just a twitch of my finger.

And the ground comes closer still.

I'm clinging from the deck plating of the _Normandy_, frantically scrabbling for anything to hold on to as a weight hanging from my leg drags me further down. There he is again, that merc who jumped after me. I can see his face clearly now...he's barely just a kid, even younger man me. His expression is one of utter terror as he is caught between escaping a collapsing building and fleeing into the enemy's hands. He looks up, holding on to me for dear life as my right arm comes down to draw my sidearm. His eyes grow wide as I point down and pull the trigger, and the sharp crack of the gun fills my ears, droning out the rush of wind as I fall.

And then I open my eyes, breathless.

Holy crap, what the hell? I struggle to catch my breath as I sit up in bed. Fuck, I haven't had a freaking dream in ages. I don't really remember much, just a vague sensation of falling, but my heart's racing, the blood is pumping, and between my skyrocketing pulse and the adrenaline coursing through me by now, there's no way I'm getting back to bed.

And I'm only just now realizing that I'm drenched in sweat, despite the fact that the ship is kept at a cool, regulated temperature. Around eighteen Centigrade, if I had to guess. I look over at my chrono, and well, it's almost time for the briefing. About ten minutes before my alarm would've woken me, so I figure I may as well get up. A shower and a change of clothes later, and I'm on my way to Deck One.

The briefing room-slash-comm room is packed when I get there. Looks like the entire ground team is there, plus everyone who stayed aboard the _Normandy_. The holo projector in the niche on the far wall is dark, and everyone is just clustered around the room while they wait for Shepard to arrive. Wow, I guess they're all interested in the debrief.

"Heard about what went on down there. Not half bad for a nugget," Ashley comments from where she's leaning against the bulkhead, arms crossed.

Man, what did I ever do to her? She's been giving me the evil eye practically since the bloody alley behind Chora's Den. And that just didn't sound too friendly, either. "All in a day's work, Chief."

"I hope you don't make it a habit to get your commanding officers blown up."

Well, technically, it was Wrex who almost got blown up, having been in the Mako's turrent and all..."Best plan I could think of right then. Besides, it worked, didn't it?"

I try to walk past her and over to Tali, who's waving me over. _Try_ being the imperative word. Because as I pass by Ashley, she grabs me and whirls me around. Dang, that woman has a strong grip, and she's squeezing down on my shoulder hard. All chatter in the room just...stops. Well, shit.

"_It worked_?" She hisses angrily. "Is that all you can come up with, _Lieutenant_? Your incompetence almost killed our CO. What kind of idiot calls in an aerial bombardment using capital-ship grade ordnance on their own location?" The room's gone all quiet now, and everyone's looking at us. At least, I think they are.

Okay, this is starting to piss me off. No, seriously, what is _wrong_ with that chick? "If you got a problem, Chief, why don't you just come out and say it? Because I hate all this dancing about the issue crap."

"My _problem_?" Oh fuck, she's gonna slug me, isn't she. Fortunately, she doesn't. "My problem is the goddamn nugget standing right in front of me!"

There she goes again, calling me a freaking nugget. Who does she think she is, Kara-fucking-Thrace? I got no idea what her problem is, but this is ridiculous. I grasp her hand and wrench it off my shoulder. "And what'd I ever do to you, exactly? You've been on my case since we met, Gunnery Chief Williams, and quite frankly, I'm getting sick of it."

"Glad to know the feeling's mutual, then," she spits back.

Wonderful, what the hell is this, second grade? "Great. Now that that's out of the way, mind letting me be on my way?" She glares at me for another moment and lets me go. Everyone else turns back to their conversations as if nothing ever happened.

Well, that was entirely unpleasant. I should probably be terrified of her, because, y'know, she's a hell of a soldier, but fuck it, I've stared Wrex in the eye and lived, I've just almost gotten fragged by a geth colossus and survived, and I've fucking survived six months of intensive training with Miranda culminating in busting Kai-fucking-Leng out of an Alliance max-sec prison station.

In comparison to that, Ashley Williams doesn't even rate. Although I'd still like to know what the hell I did to her. I mean, she's acting like I shot her favorite pet cat, or something. Oh well, I shrug it off and head over to Tali, who's standing in a corner by herself, sort of listening to Garrus and Wrex regale Kaidan with stories about our exploits on Therum. I just quietly slip in next to her and lean against the railing in front of the comm unit.

"How're you doing, Tali? I see you managed to drag yourself up from engineering,"

"I would not have missed this for all the eezo on the Fleet," she replies good-naturedly as she turns her head to look at me. "I hear you had quite an adventure down there?"

I can't quite hide my grin at the almost soothing sound of her rolling Rs and that strange yet so familiar accent. I loved Tali in the games, just her personality and her loyalty. Hell, I almost started a second playthrough with a male Shepard just to romance her. That would've been interesting, had Q decided to put me in that particular universe, if only because that Shepard probably would've been a bit more of a Renegade than the Renegon FemShep I played as. That actually makes me wonder...it seems all the SIs that are happening that Q dumped us authors and gamers into end up being universes where Shepard is female...why exactly is that? Is it because all of the people he drops into this mess are guys?

Maybe I'll ask him next time I see him.

"Yeah, it was pretty exciting. You know, the usual. Run into geth, shoot geth, run away from geth. Just trying not to get killed."

"The way I heard it, there wasn't much actual running away involved," Tali chuckles and inclines her head towards Garrus and Wrex. Well, I guess that's true. We didn't really run _away_ so much as we ran _around_, trying not to get hit. "And you took down a geth colossus, that was rather impressive. The quarians are...very familiar with the geth warmachine."

"I'd imagine so." It's hard not to hear how invested she is in the situation of her people. Guess growing up with her father's fixation on reclaiming their homeworld for her has instilled some of that same desire in her, although fortunately not to the point of obsession. I really think that Rael'Zorah had the best of intentions at heart when he made her that promise that would eventually become his undoing...but then again.

Road. Hell. Pavement.

Yeah.

But maybe we can do something about that this time around. I know it's not canon and not how it's supposed to happen, but what the hell. If I'm here to make a difference, then let's make a fucking difference. Go big, or go home, right? "You'll get to see Rannoch one day," I tell her quietly. "I'd bet my life on it. And I think...well. It doesn't really matter what I think. But I get a feeling that around Shepard, anything's possible. She just strikes me as that kind of person."

Speaking of which, guess who just walked into the room, Liara in tow?

Shepard strolls to the controls of the holo terminal, and Tali and I step to the side to give her room. The Commander brings up a view of Noveria. Looks like I know where we're headed next. Bloody cold place, from what I remember. And rachni. Yuck, those things were creepy enough in the game, nevermind in person. As the room settles down, Shepard turns around to face us.

"I've had Joker set a course for Noveria. That in particular has several reasons, the most urgent of which our guest, Dr. Liara T'Soni, has just brought to my attention." She hits a button on the console and the recording Tali recovered from the geth plays.

"Eden Prime was a major victory...it has brought us one step closer to finding the Conduit." That's Saren again.

And Benezia. Although I'm not supposed to know that yet. "And one step closer to the return of the Reapers."

When the recording ends, Shepard looks at Liara. "Why don't you explain to my crew what you told me this morning, Dr. T'Soni?"

"Uhm...all right." Liara seems a bit shaky...then again, I guess she's come a long way in Mass Effect 2 and 3 from the person she was when this whole thing started out. Dang, it's so weird, thinking of everyone before the war with the Reapers. "That voice on the recording referencing the return of the Reapers...is my mother. Asari matriarch Benezia. I lost contact with her a few months back, but I never thought anything of it, since we often go a long time without talking to each other on our expeditions. She's one of the foremost experts on prothean culture and archeology in asari space."

I think I know what she's going to see next, even if I don't remember this scene from the game. It'll be interesting to see how these people react.

"Her latest findings, which I was trying to corroborate on my own, were that the protheans, despite their highly advanced culture and technology, were actually completely wiped out by an unknown enemy some fifty thousand years ago. The only surviving reference is a name for their foe, which roughly translates into the word Reaper."

Yep, there goes the bombshell. Shepard already knows, I can tell by the set of her jaw. Just looking around the room is an interesting experience in human - and alien - psychology. I mean, I know from the games who's more receptive to the idea of an extragalactic invasion by ancient machines who're perpetuating a cycle of galactic annihilation every fifty thousand years or so, but still. It's interesting to see how they _react_ in the here and now.

Tali's frozen next to me. I mean, literally, she's stock still. I can't see her face because of her mask, but I can hear her muttered "Keelah."

Across from us, Garrus's mandibles have shifted, and I think he's only now fully realizing the enormity of the situation he got himself into with Saren, but I'm pretty sure that, being Garrus, he'll be seeing this thing through. And Wrex? He's unreadable, as always. I think he's partially looking forward to a good fight, and partially trying to figure out how to best fight something that wiped out the protheans.

Ashley just looks angry, and Kaidan...well, he looks a little shell-shocked to be honest. Can't say I blame him. It's a little much to take in, but I'm not sure he believes the connection that Liara just laid out for us, because he's looking kind of skeptical.

Time for me to say something, then, I suppose. "And we're thinking that these Reapers that wiped out the protheans are the same ones that the matriarch and Saren are trying to bring back? And bring back from _where_, exactly? The dead? Outer space?"

"We don't know from where, but yes, it would appear that Saren and my mother are at the very least working with or for forces with connections to the same Reapers that destroyed prothean civilization." To her credit, Liara doesn't break down at the revelation that her mother may be in league with a race of beings that regularly go on a galaxy-wide killing spree. Not sure I'd handle it like that, but then again, while she's young for an asari, she's what? Fifty Terran years?

"Are we certain these Reapers are not a delusion, or some kind of ploy by Saren and Benezia to shore up their power base?" Kaidan asks.

Shepard shoots him a look that's half acknowledgement and half irritation. I guess it's a valid question. "That's a possibility, Staff Lieutenant. However, coupled with the prothean beacon left behind on Eden Prime, I do think that the Reapers may present a very real threat. In either case, our mission objectives have now shifted. Our primary goal is still to apprehend Saren and stop him from reaching the Conduit. Our secondary objectives are to assess the validity of the Reaper threat, and, should they turn out to be real, act accordingly."

I bite my tongue to keep from saying, _oh, they're real, sister_, and instead watch as Kaidan rocks back from the admonishment. Huh, that's the first time I've seen some kind of division between the two. I mean, I know it's going to happen inevitable come Horizon, but perhaps there's something deeper going on there? I mean, he's a nice enough guy, I guess, but why does he keep second-guessing the Commander?

"Let me throw something completely crazy out there," I say. "Let's assume for a moment the Reapers are real. Then-"

"You're right, you are crazy. Oh yes, a mythical extragalactic race capable of wiping out an entire civilization?" Ashley snorts derisively. "That's impossible. Nothing can bring down a stable galactic government and then vanishes without a trace. It would take centuries, even millennia of war."

Again with the hostility? Like, really? What did I ever do to you, lady? I just shrug it off and play it cool. Maybe I can offer a little tidbit of hint on the Reapers' plans without revealing too much. "I beg to differ. A well-placed alpha strike at an unsuspecting government and eliminating key military hubs for command, communication, and logistics would drastically shorten an intergalactic war. Cut off the head, and the rest falls soon after. It's been a stratagem of war since Sun Tzu."

Ha, try arguing with _him_, Williams!

"And yet leave no trace?"

"Hey, who knows why the hell the Reapers did that. All we know is that _something_ wiped out the protheans. An entire culture, an entire _galaxy-spanning_ civilization doesn't just up and die out all at once. If it had been internal strife, there would've been pockets of survivors left. I'm no anthropologist, but I'm pretty sure that the only thing that would leave the prothean civilization in this kind of state was an extinction-level event. On a galactic scale."

"If these Reapers are so powerful, why do they need Saren and the matriarch? If they were capable of waging war on such a large scale, why not come in force?" Tali asks.

Unfortunately, I can't really tell her that, hey, the Reapers are all in dark space just outside of the galaxy and need someone to open the door for them because the one thing the protheans managed to achieve was to sabotage their trojan backdoor. Yeah, not saying that. "I don't know," is my reply instead, accompanied with a nonchalant shrug. "Perhaps the war with the protheans damaged their means of entering the galaxy from wherever they come from. Maybe they go into hibernation between wars in a really inhospitable place and need to be activated by some kind of beacon. Hell, for all we know they could be like gods to the geth."

Okay, I probably shouldn't have said that last one, even if in jest, but it just kind of slipped out, and Tali just...freezes. Oh shit, yeah, I really shouldn't have said that. "I didn't mean anything by that, Tali, just...just saying, there could be any number of reasons for it. Hell, we don't even understand why the protheans did half the things they did, and we've got all their ruins and people like Dr. T'Soni studying them. We know next to nothing about the Reapers or their motivations beyond the fact that apparently they wiped out the protheans."

"That's enough of that. You were saying, Lieutenant?" Shepard steps into the conversation that somehow got derailed. How did we get here again? Oh, right, Ashley was being all negative again. What the hell is up with that woman, I don't remember her being like this in the game. Didn't she use to be a nice, quiet, devout Christian with a penchant for xenophobia?

"Oh, right. Uhm...let's assume the Reapers are real for the moment. We know Saren and Benezia are likely working for or with them. Saren controls the geth, or at least some of the geth. Who, I may add, haven't been seen outside the Perseus Veil and probably not off the quarian homeworld of Rannoch for the last three hundred years, ever since the Morning War." Sorry, Tali, can't help mentioning that. "But if you think about it, what we've seen so far is just a fraction of the geth. Saren has to either control or communicate with them somehow. Maybe if we can trace their communications, we can find Saren's base of operations." And _Sovereign_ while we're at it.

Hell, if we can catch Saren with his pants down, maybe we can get the Arcturus Fleet to blow him back to where he came from. I know it's altering canon by a lot, but at this point...any victory I can get against the Reapers, I will take. Besides, the end result is the same. They will still have to come in through the other relays, minus, you know, the damage done to the Citadel. But right now, I'm half expecting Q to pop in to tell me I can't actually change that much.

Shepard looks over at me sharply. I wonder if that just earned me another trip to her office? But before she can say anything, Ashley does.

"That's the most hare-brained idea I've heard in a while. You can't seriously expect to successfully trace geth comm chatter from across the galaxy, can you?"

"I don't know, he's got a point," Garrus says. Yay, Garrus! "I'm no expert on it, but Tali may actually be able to isolate their command frequencies if they're being transmitted. I think it's worth a shot."

Shepard looks from Ashley to Garrus, then back at me. "Be that as it may, it's a theory worth investigating...but not now. Since we now have the identity of our second conspirator, Alliance Intelligence has confirmed that Matriarch Benezia has been spotted coming into the Noveria system. We will intercept her on the ground before she can leave the planet, and hopefully shed some light on the situation. We'll be there in five days. Unless we have an emergency deployment, consider yourself on your shipboard duty shifts until we arrive. Dismissed."

T

I've actually had my first engineering shift today. Turns out that while I was out down on Therum, Tali and Adams worked out a nice duty roster for us. I don't know how she did it, but in the one day she's worked in engineering, she's actually convinced him to let her lead a shift. No, scratch that, now that I think about it, that doesn't surprise me at all.

Hell, this is _Tali_ we're talking about.

So yeah. I'm actually in Tali's shift, if only by virtue of the fact that Adams actually runs the main shift, and Tali runs the off-shift. And let me tell you, she's right at home there, barking orders and shooing you around doing stuff till she's satisfied with your level of perfection. Not that that's a bad thing, but hell, when you're done there? You feel like you've run a marathon. So when Adams comes in with the relief shift, I'm about ready to grab dinner and hit the sack. Not necessarily in that order.

But Tali? Hell, she looks as chipper and active as she did at the beginning of the shift. At least I think she does, because I can't see her face, but just by the way she's nearly jumping around from console to console, there just doesn't seem to be any limit to her energy or excitement about actually working down here in engineering. But it was actually a lot of fun.

Really bloody scary, because I was half afraid of blowing something up by accident, but still really fun. Learned a lot about the actual Mass Effect universe tech, too. I mean, I won't be pulling drive cores to pieces anytime soon, but I'm pretty sure I can do some basic maintenance and repair now without having to consult a manual on my omni-tool every five minutes. And of course it's always good to know that basic engineering common sense holds here just as much as it does back home.

But while Tali's catching Adams up on status reports, I'm leaving. Besides eating and sleeping, I need to send Miranda a message. That's gonna be fun. She's given me this neat little plug-in to my omni-tool that's practically a small quantum-entanglement transmitter and receiver that can actually send and receive small data files. In this case, my AAR. And to be honest, I've always hated writing after-action reports. But it's already a day overdue, and I'm pretty sure I'm already going to get an earful when I see her next about her having to hear about shit from the news, instead of from me, her designated inside source on the _Normandy_.

It's a neat little thing, actually. It can't be traced, or intercepted, and destroying either copy of the message will automatically delete the other. Unless someone actually gets a hold of either of our omni-tools, it's about as safe as it gets.

I wave goodbye to Tali for now and head out of engineering. Wrex is leaning in his corner not doing anything, and I just nod at him as I pass by. To my surprise, he actually nods back and then resumes leaning against the wall. You know, I really thought it'd be exciting to see where the crew hangs out, but Wrex? He seems to really just stay in that one place all the time. Don't know why, maybe he's meditating, or something. But he hardly ever comes up, unless it's for a briefing or something.

Further down in the cargo bay, there's more activity as Shepard and Garrus have an animated chat over the remains of the Mako. That poor requisitions officer, I bet he's wishing to be anywhere but here right now, because they're having their conversation right in front of his desk.

"What do you mean, we won't be getting a replacement ground vehicle for at least another week?" Garrus asks. I still can't read turian undertones and sub-vocals very well, but I think he's...agitated? Either agitated or indignant. Can't really tell.

By contrast, Shepard almost sounds amused. "I've already told you, Vakarian, that the Alliance will have a new M35 standing by for us to pick up the next time we drop by the Citadel. But our mission to Noveria takes priority. With our transit time there, it's going to be at least a week before we have time to return to the Citadel."

I can't help but smile at that. Garrus almost sounds like he's pouting. Just give it up, Vakarian. You're not gonna win an argument against Shepard. Finally, Garrus just seems to open and close his mandibles, and then sighs and nods. "Very well," he says, "I'll be taking a look at the _Normandy_'s weapons systems, then. Spirits know they could use some calibration."

Shepard just nods and smiles at watches as he walks away. I swear I can see her mouth, "you do that, Vakarian," after him. Man, it must be a figment of my imagination, because I don't remember Shepard being _that_ cheeky.

I give her a quick wave as I pass by and call the elevator to up to the crew deck. She catches up with me while we're waiting for it, and it just strikes me how...at ease she looks. Even with the prothean vision, even with the threat of the Reapers, she looks...almost happy. I guess this is where she thrives, in adversity. I just hope she can keep that kind of spirit in the face of what's to come.

"How was your first shift in engineering, Grayson?" she asks easily.

"It went pretty well. Tali's certainly charmed Chief Adams. Not that it isn't well deserved," I reply as she hums in acknowledgement. "So, about our net destination..."

"Noveria?" She looks at me, and I have her full attention.

Guess it's as good a time as any to ask her.

"I was wondering, Commander, is it too late to requisition thermal underwear?"

The sound of her laughter carries all the way up the elevator ride.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven**

You know, back home I used to think those instant coffee packs you got from the supermarket were bad. Being used to, well, European and Mediterranean coffee has spoiled me a little, I guess, but I always thought that Starbuck's and the like tasted like coffee-flavored water. Which is not a bad thing, if you're looking for a quick coffee-tasting drink (albeit at exorbitant prices these days - does Starbuck's even still exist in 2183?), but since I do coffee exclusively to stay awake or wake up...yeah. Doesn't cut it.

And after the last couple of nights, I'm really damn tired. Between my duty shifts and freaking nightmares I barely remember, sleep's like, not restful. At all. Hell, after two nights of waking up in cold sweat and in absolute terror, I don't think I want to sleep at all.

So after getting off my engineering shift, I head straight for the mess hall to get me a cup of the shipboard coffee along with my grub. It's either that, or ask Doc Chakwas for some kind of stimulant or sleeping pills, and I'm not a fan of either. No matter how bad the brew here is, it can't be worse than instant-coffee, right?

Wrong.

It's abso-fucking-lutely _shitty_. It tastes like liquefied crap, mixed with frozen refried bean paste and rubbing alcohol. But a few seconds later, I can feel my heart speeding up and my blood pressure rise dangerously fast. _Damn_, this stuff has caffeine. So, no way around it, I close my eyes, try not to breathe in the fumes, and down the entire cup, trying to taste as little of it on the way down as I can.

Holy.

Fucking.

_Cow_.

That's _intense_. I haven't had coffee like that since pulling all nighters frantically trying to finish my dissertation. And that involved around twelve spoonfuls of coffee per cup to keep me going after three nights of no sleep. Holy. Fucking. Shit.

That stuff's nasty enough to give you a fucking heart attack.

"You know, that stuff is more likely to kill you than the geth at this point," Kaidan says from the next table over. After an unsuccessful attempt to cross my eyes and look past the cup I've still got raised - I'm pretty sure I must look rather comical - I put it down and cough as the concoction makes its way down my throat.

"Yeah, well," I manage to spit out between splutters, "at least it's strong."

"If you're tired, you should catch some Zs. The Commander doesn't need tired eyes on the ground," Kaidan offers good-naturedly.

He's right, of course, but at this point, I'd rather avoid sleep. I got no idea what the hell I keep dreaming about, but just the waking up part's enough for me to not want to go back there, because I tend to wake up even more exhausted than I was when I went to bed. "Yeah, maybe. Can't really sleep, though. Might have to hit up the doc for a sleeping aid, or something."

"Leave it to the damn nugget to go into combat unprepared so he can get us all killed," Ashley comments as she strides past, MRE in hand and heads into the elevator. Both me and Kaidan stare after her for a moment, then I look over at him.

"Say, you got any idea what her problem with me is? She's been on my case since I came aboard, and I'm pretty sure I never did anything to her."

Kaidan stares at the elevator doors for a bit before looking back at me and answering. "I'm not quite sure. If I had to guess, it probably has something to do with the way she lost her squad back on Eden Prime. Seeing friends die is never easy."

Aw, shit. I forgot that Jenkins kind of pulled, well, a Leeroy Jenkins on Eden Prime and got killed by a couple of geth flyers. But seriously, what do I have to do with Ash losing her squad? "I get that it's rough," I tell him, "but what's that got to do with me? I wasn't on Eden Prime, hell, we didn't even meet till the _Normandy_ left for Therum."

"My best guess?" Kaidan shrugs and leans back in his chair. "It's just as good as yours. I'd just go and ask her."

"I kinda did at the briefing a couple days ago, remember?"

He chuckles at that. "Yes, that little altercation is difficult to forget."

"I'd feel much safer if I was sure she isn't going to put a bullet in my head or something when we deploy together," I mutter. She's trying to take my head off with her virtual laser vision as it is. It's like that one time Leonard and Sheldon got into a fight, and Sheldon kept trying to make Leonard's head explode by staring at him evilly...

"I doubt she'd go that far," Kaidan assures me, although I think he's trying not to laugh. "She's a soldier first, and friendly fire isn't acceptable. She'll probably just try and let the enemy shoot you _for_ her."

Okay, now I _know_ he's laughing at me. "Great," I groan and poke at my food. "Now I've got to worry about the geth _and_ her getting me killed."

Kaidan gets up, dumps his wrappers in the trash, and claps me on the shoulder as he walks past to the elevator. "Cheer up, Lieutenant. She can't be mad at you forever."

You'd think so, wouldn't you.

But knowing the women back home...that's wishful thinking. Women can carry a _grudge_, man. I let my head sink into my arms as I just sit there, wondering what the hell I'm going to do now. Logically, I can't keep going like this. Shit. I may end up having to ask the doc for a sleeping pill or something. Man, this sucks.

"Something wrong, Patrick?"

Tali sits down across from me, and I can see the tip of her helmet peeking over the little cubbyhole formed by my arms. I glance up and groan as I sit back. "Just tired, Tali, that's all."

"Tired?" She cocks her head inquisitively. I've noticed her mannerism are very human-like - makes sense, I guess, or maybe not. Just because a race is humanoid in appearance doesn't mean their body language has to be similar, after all. But all of her gestures seem...a little exaggerated. It actually makes it much easier to read her, since I can't see her face and all. "Are you not resting well?"

I hum for a moment, wondering whether I should tell her, since, technically, she _is_ my boss. Well, one of my bosses, anyway. "It's no big deal," I finally tell her. "Just some bad dreams. It'll go away." I hope. I wouldn't know, I rarely even dream, much less have nightmares.

"Don't give me that," she replies with that mixture of amusement and exasperation that's uniquely _Tali_. Like that time in Mass Effect 3 where you find her drunk out of her skull, and she tells you, _don't "ah" me, you sound like a vorcha_? Yeah, just like that. It's kind of...adorable, really. She leans over the table and grabs my hand, tugging me up as she gets out of her chair. "Come on," she says.

What can I do? She's dragging me along like a puppy on a leash. Do quarians even have pets? Huh, getting off topic here. "Wait up, Tali, I can walk, you know!"

"Yes, but you're slow," she replies gamely as she drags me into the crew quarters. Uhm...why is she...? Bad thoughts, _bad_! Down!

We finally come to a stop in front of her foot locker. Yeah, she actually has a bed and a foot locker. As part of the dedicated senior staff - Adams's doing - she gets a bed, too, but I've never actually seen her sleep there. When I asked her about it, she just said that quarians actually work best on only about four hours of sleep. Any more and they'll disrupt their circadian rhythm.

Anyway, where was I? Ah, yes, Tali and the footlocker. You know, it's actually pretty funny to watch her fiddle with the electronic lock, trying to get it to open. Because, just like everything else engineered by the military that is affected by Murphy's Law, it works best when you don't need it. And ceases to work when you do need it.

"Come on, you little _bosh'tet_," she mutters as she punches in combinations, and it keeps cycling red. Finally, with a grunt of vexation, she opens her omni-tool and just hacks the damn lock in two seconds flat.

Which was about three seconds faster than it took her to punch in her combination.

And then, with a flourish, she presents me with the contents. Huh, that looks a lot like my armor...hey, wait, what? "Tali...is that my armor?"

She nods and shoves the chest piece into my arms. "I noticed when you came back from Therum that your cloak had stopped functioning-"

Yeah, I was going to fix that. Eventually. Honest. Okay, so I tried to fix it, but seriously? The tech that Cerberus stuck into that cloak? I got no clue how the hell they got it to work, because logically, according to all the laws of physics, it _shouldn't_. I mean, really? Photo-adaptive negative index of refraction self-replicating nanoweaves? I get a headache just thinking about that. I was going to have Miranda's techs take a look at it the next time we stopped by at the Citadel. She said hi, by the way, and I was right. She was kind of pissed that she had to read the official mission report Shepard filed before mine got to her. On the plus side, she told me I did good, so there.

"And I had some spare time, and started tinkering with it. It's working again, I hope you're not upset about me taking it," Tali continues in the same breath. Oh, she's looking at me expectantly now. I think I should answer.

"Not at all. I tried to fix it, myself, but it's...hell, it's way more complex than I know where to begin with."

She nods as she continues digging out other parts of my armor. "I noticed that. I've never seen a human-made cloak, but the technology in it is amazing. I wasn't aware your Alliance was so advanced in nano-metallurgy."

Oh shit. I know that Miranda gave me an Alliance SpecOps standard-issue light armor, but she mentioned she had Cerberus techs modify the cloak. If Tali finds out that this isn't Alliance-made...

"But I guess that your Special Operations Command gets a lot of experimental tech. Must be nice," she finishes as she fishes out the last part.

Phew. Saved. I just look at the pile of armor pieces - it looked so much neater while it was stowed in her footlocker - and just grin weakly. "Yeah. If it doesn't blow up in your face while you try it out. Thanks, Tali. I mean it. My training officer wouldn't have been happy with me bringing it back to get fixed after just one mission."

"You could always tell her it wasn't your fault. You _did _almost get blown up by a geth colossus."

I shake my head as I can just imagine Miranda standing there tsk-ing at me with her arms crossed and that exasperated look in her eyes. "Nah, she'd just tell me I should've killed it before it got the chance to shoot me. Or that I shouldn't have been standing so damn close." Knowing Miranda, she really probably _would_ say just that.

Tali giggles at that. "She sounds nice."

"Not really. But she's damn good at what she does. And she's the kind of woman you do _not_ want to disappoint. Kind of like Shepard, really, now that I think about it." Huh. Never thought I'd be singing Miranda's praises, but hell, after what she's done for me the past six months, never mind the fact that she's actually believing my story?

Major brownie points there. Besides, I was always kind of fond of her in the games. She kind of struck me as the tragic anti-heroine, who does her job because she believes it necessary, because she believes in the ideals of Cerberus, if not the implementation. And then she just gets cut off by both sides. I just found her character evolution to be the most...profound. Garrus was always Garrus; a tough cop with a defined sense of justice and loyalty. Tali was always Tali, the proverbial young crewmate who is disillusioned by war and still holds on to her idealism. Zaeed and Wrex always remain the hardened mercs they are, loyal to the money until they find a worthy cause and a worthy champion.

But Miranda? She goes from Tim's right-hand woman and Cerberus's top operative to someone who sees the bigger picture, who doesn't let blind loyalty to an organization or idea get in the way of doing what's right, to someone who'll do anything to protect her family.

"I have one more surprise for you," Tali exclaims and pulls me over, promptly causing me to shift the precarious balance of my stacked-up pieces of armor. Guess what happens? They all come crashing to the ground.

Oops.

We both stare at each other until the ringing and clattering has ceased, frozen, and hoping that no one heard that. She giggles, and I can't help but laugh. It's really comical...for starters, we're alone in here. And the armor, being ceramic and pretty lightweight, didn't make much noise as it clattered to the metal deck in the first place. From the way we both froze in terror, you'd have expected that we dropped a stack of pots and pans in the galley and Shepard had walked in on us playing with the kitchen utensils like children.

You know, if the _Normandy_ had a galley.

It's totally silly.

And you know what? It feels good to be silly. After all the crap serious shit of the last couple months, it's nice to just laugh. Even if it's at myself. _Especially_ at myself. Hell, I haven't laughed...well, since I came to this screwed-up universe, I think. It's been entirely too grimdark for my tastes, and Warhammer 40k this ain't.

Tali's laughing so hard she's doubled over, and I'm leaning against the bunk beds next to me. If anyone came in here right now, I'm pretty sure they'd have us under psych evals, because we're just laughing hysterically like maniacs at nothing at all. I sit down heavily on the bed behind me and look over at her.

"So, what'd you want to show me?"

Tali reaches into her footlocker - how does she fit all that stuff in there, anyway? - and pulls out something that only vaguely resembles my Karpov. Hey, how'd she get a hold of that, too? I thought it was safely tucked away in my locker, along with my armor...oh, right. My armor. I'm starting to see a pattern here. I'm guessing she's not really used to the idea of privacy, considering how communal the quarians are. Can't really be mad at her, though, because the she does mean well, and she's, well, _Tali_. I catch a closer look at the pistol she's holding, the vaguely familiar lines...the curved handguard, the oversized barrel...

Holy cow, is that...?

It looks like something Dirty Harry would carry around with him, and on her it just looks comically disproportionate. "Uh...Tali? Is that my gun?" Or maybe it'd be more apt to say, _did that used to be my gun_?

"Sure is," she chirps happily as she hands it to me.

The gun's about twice as heavy as it used to be. How the hell did she find the time to do all this between her shifts in engineering? And more importantly, how did she get into my locker without me noticing? It's also bulked up quite a bit. The bore is larger, and there's a new cooling shroud around it now that wasn't there before, and the entire right side is now one giant heat sink. Holy cow. And are those...scope mounts on top? "What the hell did you do to it? Looks like you stuck it in a room with nothing but steroids and methamphetamines to eat for days!"

"I made some modifications to it. Do you not like it? Should I have asked you first?" she's sounding worried now. Shoot, I think that came out a bit too harshly.

"No, no, that's not it. I'm just really surprised, that's all. It's...wow. I'm almost afraid to ask what all you did to it." I pat the bed next to me and she sits down. Turning it over in my hands, I take a closer look at the gun - I can't really call it a Karpov anymore, because it's nothing like the base gun it used to be. Besides, I never really liked that name, anyway. The heat vent lever has been made much larger and a kind of fold-out thing now, and pulling it back reveals almost the entire right side of the gun to be a ported and slotted heat sink. Dang, that's a lot of copper. The heat sink's about three times as big as the original one. And there's all sorts of slots and rails on the front of the gun. Rails...?

"What are those?" I point to them, wondering if they really are what I think they are.

Tali just pulls out a laser sight from one of her belt pouches and snaps it on. "Attachment points. I heard you complain the other day about the lack of...accessories, you called them? For your weapons. I put them in places where they will not interfere with the compacting system."

Did I say it already? Holy cow. "I don't know what to say, Tali. Just...thanks."

"It was my pleasure. Now will you tell me why you are not sleeping well?"

Figures there was a hidden agenda to it. Although I guess she was being nice, too. "Has it been that obvious?"

"Like a vorcha in a crowd of volus."

What is it with people comparing me to a vorcha? First Wrex, now Tali? "Damn. And here I thought I was a half-decent actor."

"Your acting wasn't bad, but your average reaction and task completion time dropped by twenty-five percent." Tali giggles at that and pokes at me with her three-fingered hand. "And I do not think anyone would willingly drink that stimulant from the kitchens unless they are very desperate."

"That coffee _is_ pretty foul," I admit with a chuckle. "It should be ashamed of itself. It's a disgrace to coffees everywhere."

"Then why drink it?" And there's that smugness that tells me she has me and she knows it. Ah well, I guess I can concede defeat this time. It's Tali, after all.

So I lean back against the bulkhead and drop the pistol in my lap. After making sure the safety's on and the power's off, naturally. No point in shooting myself somewhere I _really_ don't want to get shot. Wouldn't that be one for the books..."Just some bad dreams, really."

"Dreams?" Tali cocks her head to the side curiously.

Do quarians dream? Or turians, or krogan, or salarians, for that matter? I know asari have their weird visions and stuff. "Humans have a deep resting cycle, where our brain's in the low theta-frequencies. We call it REM sleep. I got no idea what it stands for, but it's basically our subconscious resting and conjuring up images from our memory. A lot of people say dreams have some kind of deeper meaning, but there's a lot of debate about that."

"Oh, I see. Quarians call that _she'most_. The life in oblivion, the world no one remembers. So you have been having these...bad dreams? Do you know why?"

"Not a clue. Hell, I'm not a psychologist, and I never bought into all that psycho-analysis crap. I never remember them, either. It's just...this really vague sensation of falling, and absolute terror. I can't get any rest like that, and to be honest, it scares the crap out of me."

"Interesting..." Tali's head remains tilted as she looks at me. "What are you afraid of, in your dreams?"

I shrug and lean my head back, closing my eyes, trying to wrap my mind around the ghost of a memory of the dreams that have haunted me the past couple of nights. It almost eludes me, just like it does every time I try and think about it, supplanted by an overwhelming sense of terror and falling. Don't give in to that, don't listen to it, don't think about falling. Go through it, try and...nothing. There's nothing there.

"I don't know, Tali. I just don't know..."

She pats me on the knee and gets up from her perch on the bed. "Perhaps you should try to talk with Doctor Chakwas about it? You cannot keep going like this."

"I know, Tali, I know." I run a hand down my face and rub my eyes. The adrenaline rush from the sludge in the mess hall already wore off. "I'm just...what am I supposed to say? I'm scared of the bogeyman in the dark?"

"I don't know what this bogeyman is," Tali says as she pauses in the door, "but if you ever wish to talk...I'm here."

T

The door to the med bay hisses open quietly, precluding any opportunity for me to knock, or hesitate before knocking. The fact that Doc Chakwas is still here is pretty strange. On duty, I mean. I always figured there'd be someone else to take over for her while she's off-shift, but apparently, she's the only certified medical professional aboard. Which, at least in my opinion, is kind of stupid. I mean, it's standard procedure that everyone else has some sort of basic emergency medical care training that comes with basic, but still...what if the Doc's out of commission? What if we're in heavy fighting and she's been patching people up for days at a time without pause?

Yeah, overworking your chief - and only - medical officer is generally not a good idea. But apparently, that's made up for by the fact that Chakwas doesn't have a regulated shift. She's generally in the med bay as needed, and otherwise off-duty. Though, considering that her quarters are nearby and she practically lives in there, the odds that she can be found in the med bay at all odd hours of the night are pretty dang good.

Of course, there's always the odd chance that she _isn't_ there. Huh. Guess she went to bed. I mean, she _is_ human, after all. At least I think she is. But considering the amount of alcohol she can consume and still remain standing _and_ coherent...well, I've had my doubts. But it looks like the med-bay's actually empty, and there's no one home...so it's either back to my bunk and try and get some sleep - fat chance of that happening - or to the mess hall and more of that toxic sludge that dares call itself coffee.

It really only takes a moment of deliberation. The mess hall, it is. I slip back out of the med bay and past the crew quarters. Tali's probably still in engineering, I swear she like, lives down there, or something, so the only occupants are Kaidan and Adams. Joker has a bed here, too, as ordered by Chakwas as his attending physician, but he hardly ever uses it. The women's bunks are separated by a thin bulkhead, but I can tell that Ashley and a handful of the senior female officers are in there.

Yeah, the walls are _that _thin. I think they're more to prevent anyone from looking than hearing anything. Of course, with everyone running crazy shifts on this tiny boat, there usually isn't much time for anything but sleeping in here, anyway. Huh, I think the non-human crew had the right idea...find a nice spot somewhere out of the way on the ship and just camp out there on a cot. Certainly beats the cramped quarters and sleeper pods. I head over to the vending machine in the back of the hall, cup in hand.

"I wouldn't drink that, if I were you."

"You know, I think that's the third time today I've heard that." I don't even turn around as I hear the voice, and instead just pour another cup full of the foul brew. Hold your breath, open up, and down it goes. Gah, that's terrible. The rush follows just seconds later, and...damn, that hurts. My pulse just skyrocketed to the point where I just _know_ it isn't healthy anymore. After a second to get myself under control, I turn around, cup still in hand. "Thought you were asleep, Doc."

"Sleep eludes you the older you get. The body spends less time resting, trying to make up the little time it has left." She peers at me through her silver bangs. "But perhaps you've learned that already."

"Maybe." I just shrug and drop my cup in the small sink and rinse it out. I think I've had about enough of that stuff for one day. "So why're you still up, Doc?"

Chakwas just smiles, winks at me, and pulls a bottle of...something from under the table. Knowing her, it's probably..."Serrice Ice Brandy," she confirms. "The bottle I keep in my office is nearing the end of its life, I'm afraid, so I had to raid the cargo hold."

"Spent the evening with Shepard, huh?"

"Indeed. But perhaps the Commander isn't the only one who might benefit from a friendly late-night chat?" She's holding out the bottle and tilting her head towards the med bay. "Come on, Lieutenant. Drinks are on me."

You know, I usually don't drink, but what the hell. If it helps me sleep, I'm willing to try anything at this point. Even my usual go-to anesthesia by blunt force trauma. And I was looking for her, anyway. She easily waves on the lights in the med bay and settles the bottle on her desk, reaching underneath for a set of tumblers.

"Have a seat, Lieutenant. I do not bite," she says as she pours the drinks for us, then looks up at me. "Often."

"And here I thought you were a vampire."

"Please, Lieutenant, I do have standards. Drinking my patients' blood is _highly_ unsanitary." She chuckles and hands me a glass as I perch on one of the treatment beds. Her chair is turned towards me, and for a moment, I just stare at the glass in my hands. "So...what would you like to drink to?"

"How about..." oh, I don't know. "How about peace and prosperity?"

"Oh, come on, Lieutenant, you can do better than that."

Hell...I don't know what's there to toast about. I'm goddamn stuck in this universe, away from the life and home I know, because some omnipotent motherfucker thought it'd be funny to see what happens when you toss hapless people into life-or-death situations. This isn't the goddamn movies, you can't throw random people into this shit and expect them to be heroes, it doesn't work that way. People _die_. Fuck, I mean, I'm not even a goddamn soldier, and that's what Shepard needs...heh, Shepard. _She_ is the goddamn hero this fucking universe needs, what the hell am _I_ supposed to do here? Dammit, Q, if you wanted to show your fucking Continuum how great humanity is, why didn't you just pick someone _great _to do this shit?

So yeah, I'm irritable when I'm tired. And this whole situation? In all honesty, it pisses me off. I had a good life, friends, family. The last six months I spent doing shit I never thought I'd ever do, shit I never _wanted_ to do. I never asked for this. I have no fucking clue how I'm even supposed to survive this bloody war, nevermind actually make a _difference_. Bloody fucking hell, it takes someone like fucking _Shepard_ to make a difference. Me? I'm a wet noodle in comparison. I'm just stumbling along, hoping that I won't die in the nightmare this place is going to become. Or maybe I'll be wishing I was dead when it does all go to hell. Who knows.

So let me take a page out of Kara Thrace's book, because that seems like the most appropriate here. "Life," I say, raising my glass. "May we live hard, fast, and loud, and take what we can get..._today_. Because we go out there, over and over...again and again, until one day, some metal motherfrakker catches us on a bad day and blows us away. So...to _right now_."

"Quite the cynic for one so young, aren't you, Lieutenant?" Chakwas seems to take it in stride, though, as she clinks her glass to mine. "But just as well...to right now."

The alcohol is unlike anything I've ever had before. I've tried beer, wine, and rum...but the brandy is harsher than any of those. It's tangy, and bitter, and it burns as it slides down my throat. And it feels...oddly comforting. The pain, the burn, the sharp musk that clears your sinuses and your head better than a shot of wasabi, it makes me feel warm and..._alive_.

"So what brings on your cynicism tonight, Lieutenant?" Chakwas asks after she downs her shot. And she's already pouring herself a new one.

I shrug and hold out my glass, which she gamely refills. "Just hit me what a clusterfuck I'm in, I guess. This whole thing?" I sweep my arms across the med bay, "all this? That wasn't really supposed to be my life, you know. I had it all planned out. Go to school, become an engineer. Maybe even help build something meaningful, you know? Something to be proud of. Something that makes a difference. That's what I do. Or was supposed to."

The second glass goes down easier than the first, but the pleasant warmth remains. It's a lot more pleasant than the rum I tried once, not nearly as bitter. Chakwas, of course, easily matches me and pours us a new round.

"So, what brings you here, then?" she asks as she leans back in her chair. "There is a lot of demand for good engineers out in the colonies. Or even in the armed forces. Why go into SpecOps?"

"You know what, Doc? I don't even know. This...this isn't _me_, you know. I'm supposed to be _creating_ stuff to make life better, not run around shooting people. I...I don't belong here. This...this war, I don't know a thing about how to make a difference here. All I can do is follow orders and hope I don't get in anyone's way, Doc. I guess...I guess I thought I could make a difference, you know? But it turns out I'm just...me. Little old me. I'm not an N7, or a centuries old krogan battlemaster, or a technical wiz. I'm a goddamn engineer, not a soldier." I don't know what it is about Chakwas, or the alcohol, or some combination of both, but it's just really easy to spill things to her. I guess that's why she's Shepard's confidante. You talk to her and have the feeling that you can tell her everything and nothing, and she'll still find a soothing word and a way to make you feel better. Almost...motherly. Only, like, with a freaky high alcohol tolerance.

Chakwas just smiles and nods as she sits there, thoughtfully swirling the liquor around in her tumbler. "I guess that's understandable. Military life isn't suited for everyone, and Special Operations even less so. Still, it appears you had a very promising career lined up. There must have been a reason you joined up. Something stronger, something big enough to make you give up your dreams."

"Heh...it's big, all right. It's not like I really had a choice." A dry chuckle forces its way past the alcohol going down, followed by a humorless laugh. "Nope, no choice at all. There isn't much of a future, anyway, and I stupidly thought that I could help make a difference by coming here." And another shot. "What a stupid thought."

"Perhaps not so stupid at all, Lieutenant. You're here because for some reason you believed it necessary to be here," Chakwas retorts as she drains her glass yet again. How many does that make? Three? Four? I lost count. But I take her up on the next one, anyway while she continues to speak. "That in itself is commendable. And even so...Special Operations doesn't take just anyone. Just the fact that you're here, on this very ship, Lieutenant, is saying that you are capable of contributing. Of making a difference, as you put it."

"Does it?" I counter as I empty the class. It's starting to get a little difficult to line it up with my mouth, actually. "All I've done so far is kill people. People who had nothing to do with this whole thing with the geth. Like that kid back on Therum. He just tried to get off that goddamned rock before it all crumbled under our feet, and I shot him right off my boot."

I may be drunk, but I'm not stupid enough to mention my little trip to _Bastion_. The alcohol is actually causing me to slur my words slightly now, and I take my time carefully forming the words before they come out. "Just...just like that, Doc. He was just hanging on to me, trying to get off the roof. Anywhere but there. Even aboard an Alliance ship with the people who just shot at him. And I...I just..." I mime shooting a gun with my hand. "Just like that. And he looked so young...probably had family out there. Parents, siblings..."

"Ah, I see the root of the problem," Chakwas says, nodding sagely. Down goes another round. "Taking a life is never easy. Unfortunately, it is sometimes a necessity, but that doesn't change the fact that it is an ugly thing to do. A stain on one's conscience that can never be erased...and should never be forgotten."

"You ever kill someone, Doc? I mean, not in self defense, but because he was there, on the battlefield, and you just had a clean shot?"

"Believe it or not, Lieutenant, I have. I wasn't always a ship doctor, you know. Service as a field medic in the Traverse is dangerous business, and knowing how to handle a firearm can mean the difference between life and death, not only for you, but also your patients," she replies quietly. I don't know if it's the alcohol or the memories, but she's sobered, and not in the physical sense. Even the hand that was religiously pouring the brandy has stilled.

"I'm sorry," is all I can say.

But then she looks up, and the steel in her eyes is back, and she smiles, even if it seems a little forced. "But I am not, Lieutenant. Because the men I killed that day were bad men, about to commit unspeakable acts. They hadn't done anything yet, but the intent was there...had I hesitated a little longer..." Chakwas straightens up and pours us both a new glass. "It's not something I'm proud of, but it had to be done. Remember, Lieutenant. Always remember...because this is what keeps us human. But don't let it paralyze you."

"How? How can I just...continue doing this? One life at a time, how do we justify it?"

"Because it's necessary. Because when we fail to do what's necessary, more people suffer. Those who kill take on a burden that others will never know." Chakwas doesn't seem to want to drink this glass, though, as she continues talking...to it, or to me, I'm no longer sure at this point.

"And when it's not necessary?" I ask, my mind drifting back to that kid hanging from my leg, trying to claw his way up into safety. The rasp of my pistol unfolding...the sharp discharge of my weapon...the shocked and terrified look on his face as he slips and falls...and falls...

Chakwas sets her glass down sharply. "Then, Lieutenant, we have to deal with the guilt. That, too, is part of what makes us human. But sometimes a little alcohol and company can go a long way to helping with that."

"Yeah, well...my first mission, and I already fucked up." I raise my glass to her. "I killed a kid who was just trying to save himself. So, to royal screwups."

"If you want to call saving my life, and Vakarian's life, and even Wrex's life a royal screwup, Lieutenant, then I would dearly love to see what you term a success." The voice comes from the darkened back of the med bay, and I jump in surprise as Shepard walks into the light. Holy crap, did she just pull a fucking Gibbs?

Just...poof, outta nowhere. Damn. Somehow, this feels like..."This was all a setup, wasn't it?" I mutter angrily; it comes out with more of an edge than I want it to, thanks to the alcohol. "Just peachy. Give the new guy a surprise psych eval while getting him drunk. What now, Commander? Gonna boot me off this boat?"

"Not at all, Grayson," Shepard says as she stalks towards me and just takes the glass out of my hand before I can empty it, and promptly drinks it, herself. "Your shift supervisors were getting concerned about you. Your _friends_ were getting concerned. Tali came to me earlier today, telling me you weren't sleeping well. And Doctor Chakwas mentioned that you were having nightmares."

"So what, Commander? They're just dreams."

"That's true, they're dreams. But they're affecting your performance, Grayson. I know what sleep deprivation does to you. Contrary to what you may believe, I do care about my crew. We didn't start off on quite the right foot, but that doesn't mean I'll let you torture yourself over something that couldn't be helped."

"I shot a man, Commander! I fucking pulled my sidearm out and shot him, and all he did was scare me, because he was trying to climb up into the ship next to me. And. I. Fucking. Shot him." It's probably not a good thing that I'm snarling right into my commanding officer's face, but she just stands there, expressionless, and waits for me to finish.

When I'm done, she's dead silent for a moment. Oh shit, I think I just overstepped the line. Hell, I didn't overstep it, I fucking trampled it, then ran over it with a monster truck. And then backed up right over it, for good measure. And when she opens her mouth to respond, I close my eyes, expecting her next words to be her ordering me to get off her ship before she has me thrown out the airlock.

"You missed," she says very, very softly. So quietly that I almost think I imagined it.

"What?"

"Your armor's combat recorder. You missed. You didn't shoot him. His death...was an unfortunate result of Joker taking off and him compromising his grip by reaching for his weapon. You had nothing to do with it."

"But...I..."

Shepard grips my shoulder, hard, and stares _down_ at me. We're about the same height, maybe I have an inch or so on her, but still she manages to actually stare down on me. "You didn't kill him. There was nothing you could've done. He _chose_ to reach for his weapon." The way she's looking at me, her eyes boring right into me...it's almost as if she's _willing _me to believe it. As if she can make me believe it by sheer willpower alone. And somehow, either by her words, or by the proof she's offering, there's a weight I didn't realize was there that is just...gone. The oppressiveness I felt over the past couple of days lifts somewhat.

"You got that?" she asks me.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good." She lets go of my shoulder and steps back, leaning against the Doc's desk. "Oh, and Lieutenant? Don't think I don't know that was you with the colossus. You saved our asses out there, all of ours. That was some fine work. You wanted to make a difference, Grayson? You already have. Just one action. One piece of the puzzle. Sometimes, that's all it takes to make all the difference in the world."

And you know what?

Maybe she's right.


	12. Chapter 12

**Author's Notes:** Here's number twelve! Happy to have y'all still aboard for the ride, and welcome back quantumparadigm, hope you had a good vacation :) To answer your question, no, I haven't read the books, but I do love the games. I'll admit that there hasn't been as much interaction with some of the characters as I'd like, but hopefully, later chapters will get around to it, especially after the first two awkward missions have gotten out of the way. Enjoy, folks!

**Chapter Twelve**

I'm not going down to Noveria. Well, shit. I'm almost wondering if Shepard's keeping me on board so Doc Chakwas or Tali can keep an eye on me, what with my near breakdown the other night. Maybe, maybe not. Whatever the case, she chose to take Liara and Garrus with her down there, arguing that it would be good to have Liara along to have some insight into her mother's actions, and Garrus for...well, his C-Sec-ness. Who better to deal with the local cops than another cop, right?

Although I already know how this one's going to play out. That is, if everything goes according to script this time. I don't know what it was about just...talking and letting it all out with the Doc and Shepard that one night, but I haven't had a single damn nightmare since. Actually slept pretty well, and even Tali mentioned that I was a hell of a lot more chipper during my engineering shift that day. I don't know, maybe it's the knowledge that I didn't shoot an innocent man, or that if I _had_, it would've been self-defense.

Maybe it's knowing that I have a purpose here, that Q chose me for a _reason_, and not someone like, well, James T. Kirk. Who, by the way, I still think would've slept with every woman in the universe and still have found the time to send the Reapers packing, crying for their mommy. Not everyone may be cut out to become a hero in this situation, but perhaps that's the point. A hero is just that...a _hero_. Someone extraordinary who is just waiting for the opportunity to step up and show the universe what they're made of. But that's not me. That's not the majority of people, I'd bet.

But perhaps this isn't about being extraordinary. Perhaps this is just about being plain _ordinary_. Someone with real doubts and fears, thrust into a situation beyond their control. Because right now, for me, it's either lie down and die, or stand up and fight, for whatever that's worth. And hell, I've never been one to take anything laying down. Whether I can really make a difference in the final outcome or not...I'm going to try, because that's all I can do.

_The best you can. That's all. You're here to do what any of your admittedly limited species can do. Your best._

Q's words from our very first meeting suddenly come to mind. Holy...

I spin around at the sudden clapping behind me, only to find the world, once again, in black and white, with a familiar figure in a Starfleet uniform standing there, casually leaning against a console.

"I see you've finally come to a conclusion," he says dryly. The urge to punch his smug face is suddenly back. Although, I guess, he did lay it out for me on day one.

So I just nod and sigh and cross my arms. "Yeah, laugh it up. It's not easy, being a mere mortal, you know."

To my surprise, he actually acknowledges that fact with a sharp incline of his head. Oh, right, he spent some time stripped of his Q powers. I remember him driving Janeway absolutely nuts. Man, that was actually...slightly amusing. He suddenly frowns at me. He's reading my mind, isn't he?

"I am. And as hard as you think your life is, imagine being one of us - as well as your feeble mind can grasp the concept, anyway - and finding yourself suddenly stripped of all your powers. To suddenly be blind and deaf and mute to the universe."

"So you came all the way here just to tell me I'd finally gotten it right? Like, figured out your reason for screwing with my life and sending me to a fictional universe that's about to be hit with enough shit to bury the proverbial fan?"

"Only in part," he says as he idly buffs his nails against his command-red uniform shirt. "It has been...an interesting experience watching all of you, even the rest of the Continuum had to agree with that. And while I am not about to interfere, I do feel like I should warn you that your very presence in this universe has already begun to alter the course of events."

"No shit, Sherlock," I grumble. It's kind of hard to miss a fucking _colossus_ that isn't supposed to be there. "Anything else you'd like to warn me about?"

That shit-eating grin is back. "Nope. Although I must say, you seem to complain an awful lot about your situation compared to the others."

"Yeah, well, this whole killing business? It's really not my thing."

"An interesting sentiment, considering how warlike your race is."

"Yeah, well...you couldn't have put me in _Sim City 3000_, or something, couldn't you?" I shoot back, more in jest than in seriousness.

Q just shrugs. "I could have...but that wouldn't have been nearly as entertaining. There's no drama, no conflict there, you understand."

"Yeah...you're going to get a shitload of _conflict_ here real soon."

"I know...and I hope you have a plan, because whether you believe me or not, you are here to prove that you _can_ make a difference. The Continuum depends on your success and that of the others."

That's the third time he's mentioned that. What's so important about this little experiment of his, anyway? And yes, I have no doubt that that's all this is...an experiment by Q. Something he cooked up while he was bored. Like watching hamsters run in a cage, only, well, with humans, instead of hamsters. But all this meta shit about teaching the Continuum, and proving ourselves to them? What's all that about?

"You never explained that one to me," I reply. "What exactly do you mean, the Continuum can learn from us? What's your plan? Your reason?"

"There are many reasons, most of which are beyond your comprehension," he waves me off.

"Most, but not all. Try me, Q. You owe me. You just ripped me from home and stuck me in this shithole-to-be. I deserve to at least know why I'm here."

"In time," he tells me with a patronizing grin that just makes me want to smack him. Yeah, no wonder he always infuriated Picard and Janeway so much.

Well, I guess if he's not going to give me an answer..."So, how many times has Janeway shot you down since we last talked?"

_That_ gets a sour grimace from him. Ha! Take that, you omnipotent asshole! Omniscient, omnipotent, and _still_ can't get the woman. Cue evil laughter no. 74: Mad Cackle. "Kathy will come around. After all, why would she limit herself to members of your limited, primitive species?"

"Oh, perhaps because she's a member of that so-called _limited, primitive_ species?" There's no hiding the grin on my face now. "Face it, Q...she's human. Sex with a cloud of energy just can't sound all that appealing to her."

"I-no...what?" He splutters almost comically. "That's not how it works!"

Oh, I know that's not how it works. Well, between Q, maybe, because I'm only ever seen him do that merging flash thingy with the female Q during that Star Trek episode with the Q civil war, but I imagine that he'll probably be quite solid otherwise. Maybe. But it's still funny to troll him. Oh, I'm totally going to troll him. I wonder if 4chan still exists?

He finally realizes I'm practically laughing at him, and just huffs in annoyance. "Very well then, I can see that I'm not needed here." His expression turns serious for a moment. "Do be careful. There are forces beyond your comprehension at work here."

A snap of his fingers later, and he's gone, and color is back in the world. And Tali's wondering why I'm sliding down the bulkhead laughing like a maniac.

T

"Grayson, you got a call coming in from the Commander asking for you by name. Grab Tali and Wrex and head up to the comm room, I'll route it there," Joker's voice comes through the intercom panel. I look over at our resident quarian, but she just shrugs, having no idea what could be going on. I head out to collect Wrex while she arranges for one of the other engineers to take over while she's up on Deck One, and meets me and Wrex at the elevator.

"What do you think is going on down there?" Tali asks as we wait for it to move us up to Deck One. Did I mention already that this elevator moves slow as heck? That doesn't seem to bother Wrex any, because the big krogan merc is just leaning against the far side of the cabin, staring straight ahead of him. Huh, I never really noticed it, but his body language is really a lot like...Zaeed's. All casual and stuff with that air of badassery and violence around him. Tali shifts nervously...I think she's just slightly uncomfortable to be in such close proximity to a krogan.

Yeah, Wrex is pretty dang intimidating up close. And the elevator is really cramped. So she's standing next to me, which is about as far away from Wrex as she can get. It also puts me right in between them. I turn to face Tali and shrug. "Not a clue." Which is, of course, not really true. I have a vague idea of what's going on, but I have no clue why Shepard's calling in for us. That part certainly wasn't in the game.

And...the elevator lapses back into uncomfortable silence. Hey, just because I got an approving nod and clap on the shoulder from Wrex for the _fun_ we had on Therum - which, by the way, nearly broke my collarbone, the clap on the shoulder, that is - doesn't mean that either me or Tali are entirely comfortable in this confined space with a hulking half-ton of krogan muscle. Thankfully, the elevator arrives soon enough and spills all of us into the command deck. Kaidan and Ashley are already in the comm room, and the moment the door closes behind us, Joker cuts in Shepard's transmission.

I pointedly ignore Ash's glare at my back as I step up next to Tali to the holoprojector. "Commander, you called?" I ask, since she, well, specifically called for me.

"Yeah. We've run into a bit of...bureaucratic bluster down here." The signal's a little distorted from the snowstorm that's tearing around the antennae on the ground, but Shepard appears to be standing in some kind of office...oh, right. Probably Parasini's office. I think it was Parasini, right? The Internal Affairs agent who asked Shepard to bring down Noveria's governor. Damn, I really should've replayed or brushed up on my Mass Effect lore. Then again, if I'd known I was going to be sent here, I probably would've done quite a few things, not the least of which is telling Q to stick his brilliant idea where the sun don't shine. But I digress.

"Bureaucratic bluster, eh? Gotta love that red tape."

"We're working an angle here. I've got Liara and Vakarian on a lead, but we could use some tech help down here." Shepard's image cocks its head to the side for a moment as if listening to someone else, then focuses back on us. "Listen, Grayson, I want you to take the second Kodiak down, we need some of your talents and technical expertise."

"Wouldn't the quarian be more qualified?" Ashley asks in that nauseatingly perpetually-irritable tone that seems to be her new fad. Hell if I know what's up with her, but if I didn't know any better - and was any more bluntly offensive than I am - I'd say she's permanently PMSing. Not that that's funny in any way, but she's just...yeah. Severely bad mood and short temper?

Shepard briefly looks over at the gunnery chief, then back at me, and even over the comms, the dismissal of the question is clear, but she answers anyway. "She might be, but she's on her main duty shift in engineering right now. Grayson's free, and he's just as good. Take the shuttle, Grayson, and meet us at the platform."

"Aye aye, Commander," I nod. "You sure you don't want me to bring anyone else? Like...Wrex? I'm sure he could make those paper-pushers work faster just by being in the same _room_ with them."

That actually gets a chuckle out of her. "I'd tend to agree, Grayson, but we don't exactly want them to feel like we're launching an invasion. Between you, me, Vakarian, and Liara we should be able to handle anything that comes our way."

Damn. I was really hoping she'd let me bring Wrex, because, well, you know, there was a specific reason I asked. Big, screechy, eight-legged? Yeah, rachni. I remember _that_ much about Noveria. Specifically, I remember thinking all level long how much we could've used more firepower. And having Wrex, our walking-talking-running-gunning tank down there? Would've been a big plus, because stupidly, on my first playthrough, I _did_ bring Garrus and Liara.

But Shepard's not done, and now she's talking to Kaidan. "Lieutenant Alenko, we're about to lose long-range comms in this snowstorm. You're in charge up there until comms clear up or we return. Don't scratch up my ship, you got that?"

"Yes, ma'am." Kaidan's the only one Shepard will actually let get away with calling her _ma'am_, for some reason.

"All right, see you on the other side." Shepard motions to turn the comm off, but then pauses and looks at me. "And Grayson? Bring your thermal underwear. It's fucking _cold_ down here."

T

You know, after flying that Kodiak shuttle down through the massive snowstorm that just enveloped Port Hanshan and cut off long-range communication gave me a whole new appreciation for pilots like Joker. I've always dreamed of getting a pilot's license for choppers, even taken a few lessons. Flying a chopper, anything, really, that's capable of just frigging _hovering in place_ is pretty hard to fly.

But compared to flying through this bloody snowstorm with zero visibility and gusting winds? Yeah, cakewalk. Seriously, pilots who can navigate this by sheer instinct and instrumentation alone and fly level and smoothly, and make it look _easy_ are geniuses. When I bring in the shuttle to finally land, Shepard's already waiting for me at the platform. The moment the hangar doors close behind me, she's already at the bottom of the ramp.

I shoot her a brief salute, then lock up the shuttle behind me. "You called, Commander?"

"Walk with me, Grayson." And without waiting for me to reply, she turns around and strides away.

"We have a lead on Matriarch Benezia. It appears she made planetfall not too long ago, and headed over to the research facilities at Peak 15. Unfortunately, according to port authorities, we are not allowed to take our shuttles there - not that we could fly them in this storm, anyway," she explains. Okay, I knew that much. So now she should be getting to the part where Parasini offers to get them a garage pass in exchange for incriminating Administrator Whatshisface Linoleum. Anodium. Something like that.

And right on cue, Shepard continues. "We need a garage pass from the administrator's office so we can take one of their refit Makos out to Peak 15. I have Liara and Vakarian working on an angle, but we need your...unique qualifications for this. I need you to infiltrate the Synthetic Insights main office on the main concourse. You're looking for a personal terminal containing payroll, dossiers, and financial information that will incriminate Administrator Anoleis."

"Okay..." I mutter, more for her benefit than mine. Ah, that was his name, Anoleis. Eh, it's not really important, anyway, his name could be Administrator Ass-hat for all I care. So Shepard wants me to go into Synthetic Insights and raid Qui'in's computer? Guess it's more subtle than having her entire squad barge in there. I pull up a map of Port Hanshan on my omni-tool. "Any further information on the target, Commander?"

"Just that time is of the essence. Minimal involvement of the local law enforcement units would be best, but some of them may be on the Administrator's payroll, and heading there to retrieve the same disc. You'll have to hurry."

"I best be going, then, Commander."

"_We_ best be going, Lieutenant." Shepard looks at me and hands me the data chip. "Just make sure you're out of sight. I have a bit of a suspicion, and I hope I'm wrong, but you'll be there just in case."

So that's how she wants to play it, huh? All right, then. I toggle the newly-fixed cloak on my armor and follow her to the Synthetic Insights elevator. It deposits us on the main level of the company tower. There's no one inside the receptionist area, which is already strange. I mean, it's a company that's still doing business and isn't under investigation, or anything. So why is everyone gone...? There's not a single person between us and the main staff area in the back, which is starting to creep me out.

Shepard just strolls through as if she owns the place, though, and thanks to my cloak, that's all surveillance cameras will see. Door after door passes as we head down corridors, each with a name neatly stenciled across it to identify the owner of the office behind. And finally...there's Qui'in's, just off the main hallway. With the Cerberus hacking suite in my omni-tool, it doesn't take long to override the lock while the Commander just wanders about looking for all the world like a lost tourist. The deception is unnecessary, of course, because I'm starting to get the feeling that Anoleis already shut down Synthetic Insights, and as such anyone walking around here would look pretty suspect.

Once the door lock cycles, Shepard just pokes her head in the door, long enough for me to slip in undetected without having the cameras see the doors open and close for no reason. But still, better safe than sorry, I guess. Plausible deniability and all that. Wait. I freeze before I take a step into the room. Wasn't there a Renegade/Paragon choice around here somewhere? Like, scaring off a couple guards, or something? I run a quick thermal scan on my omni-tool, but nothing comes up.

Strange. Maybe I remember wrong. But I do remember that we're supposed to be confronted by one of the security executives once we're about to leave. What just creeps me out is the fact that we're all alone in here. A quick EM flare from my omni-tool to blank out all the cameras in the office and then I disengage the cloak and get to work on the terminal. The computer beeps and chirps as it quietly powers up, and I hesitantly stick the datachip into the appropriate slot. There's this real feeling of unease, that same feeling of looming disaster as I had on Therum, right before the earthquakes started. That can't be good. I give the room another quick scan before finally running the copy command on the terminal.

The bar fills with agonizing slowness. You'd think that with quantum computing and all that shit they'd come up with something faster than the typical MS Windows copy bar. I nervously glance around the room. It's just like it was in the game, there's very little cover, and very few points from which to set up an ambush.

Fifty percent done.

I can hear Shepard's footsteps outside.

Sixty percent.

Where the hell is she going...?

Seventy percent.

The high-pitched whine of weapons fire breaks the silence, and a sharp staccato of impacts from an assault rifle against the outside wall drums at my ears. What the fuck? The bark of Shepard's shotgun drowns out the other gunfire for a second, coupled with cries of pain as her rounds find their mark.

Seventy-five percent.

The shooting's getting closer, and there's the tell-tale crackle of Shepard's biotics. What the hell is going on out there? An earth-shattering roar later, and I'm _sure _Shepard just Charged someone.

Eighty percent.

The door to the office blows open, and I duck as it careens right over me and into the far wall with an impossibly loud crash. Holy crap, what the...I spare a glance over at the terminal while ducking underneath the desk.

The download halts. Just stops. Then an error pops up. _Files corrupted_. What the fuck? Shepard comes running into the room now, sliding underneath a hail of gunfire that sends me scrambling for cover underneath the heavy desk as rounds whiz by overhead through the holographic screen. I peek over as more rounds spray into the office, and heave my shoulder against the desk, toppling it. A second later, Shepard slides into the cover it provides next to me as I'm looking at my omni-tool interface in disbelief.

You know how in the movies the heroes can always see the data stream across their screens and slowly disintegrate as it's being deleted, giving them precious few seconds to come up with a plan to salvage it? Lines of code scrolling by, slowly unraveling, folders disappearing one at a time. And then the hero just hits a few keys, or yanks out the flash drive, and gives it to his tech specialist to recover the fragments?

Yeah, that doesn't happen in real life. Because as slow as copying shit may be, _deleting_ shit is really, bloody, fucking fast. A split second, and then it's gone. There's no watching your hopes drain away, no slow vanishing of code a line at a line. It just blinks, and then it's gone.

Just like the files I was just copying from the terminal. Well, fuck, I always thought these self-destruct viruses that wipe harddrives were a movie myth, but apparently not. The terminal shuts down and reboots in default mode, blinking cursor and all, asking for an operating system boot disk. Uhhh...shit.

"We've got a bit of a problem here, Lieutenant," Shepard says cheerfully as she leans around the table and lets off a blast from her shotgun.

I look over at her, then back down at my omni-tool as I remotely access the terminal's drive. Nothing. Completely blank. I'm surprised whoever did this didn't rig it to explode, or anything, but _fuck_. I don't remember this shit going down this way. "We may have a slightly bigger problem, Commander."

"Oh? What's that?" Man, Shepard sounds almost _happy_ gunning down these guys. What'd they ever do to piss her off?

Seeing her actually wield her shotgun one-handed this close up - it being a self-cocking, semi-automatic variant, there's no need for a second hand to actually pump it - actually scares me a little. Hell, she's going all Terminator on these guys, and I'm almost afraid to give her the bad news. "The evidence we were looking for? It's gone."

"Gone?"

"Gone," I confirm uneasily. "There's nothing left on the drives, not even an operating system. I'm guessing someone rigged it to wipe, either by remote access or by some kind of trigger." Hell if I know, I'm not a computer scientist. I suck at writing code. Or, how would DeForrest Kelly say it? _Dammit, Jim, I'm an engineer, not a programmer!_

"Interesting."

_Interesting_? That's the only thing she has to say about it? We came all this way to get some files to get a garage pass and it's gone and we're in the middle of a freaking firefight, and all she can say is _interesting_? Speaking of firefights, I should probably get involved. I reach for my rifle, unfold it, and rest it on the edge of the desk.

Then I take one look at her un-helmeted face, and I realize, _she knows_. "What the hell's going on here, Commander?"

"Watch and learn, Lieutenant, watch and learn." She pokes her head out of cover and yells. "Captain Stirling, this is Commander Shepard. I'm giving you this opportunity to surrender. It's a one-time offer, I suggest you take it."

There's a pause in the shooting, and Shepard motions me to set up across the room. With my cloak and sound-dampers on full, I sprint across and duck behind a potted plant. My rifle's out and deployed in one smooth motion, and I've got a bead drawn at the open doorway. I've got one shot at whoever Shepard wants me to cover, because then my cloak's going out and I'm going to be a pretty big target with not much for cover. 'Cause clay flowerpots? They're not exactly bulletproof, you know.

Someone - Stirling, I presume, but damn if I can remember her face from the game - calls back with some humor. "I'm not the one who's pinned down in an office with no way out, Commander. I have you for breaking and entering, attempted theft, industrial espionage, and assault and murder. I'd surrender if I were you."

"And I've got you for obstructing a Council investigation, assault on a Council spectre, embezzlement, and in general being a bitchy pain in the ass," Shepard chuckles as she stands up, her shotgun at her hip. "I'm thinking I've got a better case."

I think I know what she's doing...she's trying to bait Stirling into walking into the room so I can take the shot. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that, considering the fact that I can just imagine a bunch of laser sights being trained on Shepard right now. Oh, this isn't going to end well, is it?

"Oh, come on, Commander, do you really expect me to walk into your sniper's line of sight? That's the oldest trick in the book."

I knew it. Well, fuck, I hope Shepard has a plan. Wait, if I can flank around, and...

There's a bright cyan flare, and an energy wave washes across the room. My cloak fizzles for a moment, and for a long, dreadful second, I'm dead sure that EMP charge killed it for the second time in as many missions. Thankfully, though, Cerberus is as good at its job as it's ruthless, and the cloak is still intact. Phew. There's a brief moment in which I wonder how the hell they knew to bring EMPs to short out personal cloaks, but that's shoved aside in favor of finding a way to get the drop on them. I'm still cloaked, which they don't expect...I hope.

Okay, so let's think. Shepard's still in full view of the door, acting as though she doesn't care as if they can have a dozen guys put rounds into her - that is, if she doesn't Charge into them first. I've got, uhh...a handful grenades. Flashbangs and EMPs, no frags, no smokes. Okay, thermal view, let's take a look. The outlines of a dozen people shows up outside in the hall - a little fuzzy and indistinct, because there's a metal wall in between us - but it's good enough to make out a huge blob of people.

This isn't good, not good at all. What the hell is Shepard thinking?

"You think I didn't expect Qui'in to sell us out?" Shepard replies evenly.

Wait, what? I thought Qui'in worked for Parasini...or was her witness, or something.

"I mean, come on, what'd you offer the guy, huh? A top-paid executive position? Retirement fund? Private island? Although, if you did offer him one, I hope he was at least smart enough to ask for one that's situated in a bit better climate," the Commander continues, and I'm left to wonder if she's lost her mind.

I may not remember much about the original Mass Effect game, but I'm pretty sure it went something like, that Parasini chick wanted Qui'in as a witness for her case against Anoleilus...that administrator dude. I forget his name. Qui'in, then sends Shepard on a merry quest to retrieve the evidence, which can be either turned in to Qui'in to take the witness stand, or directly to Parasini to just plain indict Administrator-Dude. I'm pretty sure that any sort of backstabbery wasn't part of the script, unless it was Shepard doing the Renegade thing and bringing the evidence to Admin-Dude.

"You're delusional, Commander," Stirling counters. "We're here to take you into custody on Administrator Anoleis's orders. I warned you not to cause any trouble. Looks like you weren't very eager to listen."

Oh, right, his name is Anoleis. I think I'll stick with Admin-Dude, it's easier to remember. Or Administrator Ass-hat. It fits better. But I still don't get how Shepard thinks Qui'in actually sold us out, because if I remember correctly, then Anoleis already had sent his goons over to steal the evidence. No time to worry about it now, need to get out of this first. I unhook one of the flashbangs from my utility belt. Maybe if I can get enough of them, between the flashbang and Shepard's crazy Charging, we can clean up the rest.

"I did mention that I would ruin your day, Stirling. You should've taken my offer to walk away." All the humor is gone from Shepard's tone now. It's like she _knows_ she's got her, but I have no idea how she's planning on doing it. Hell, I have no idea why I'm even here in the first place, instead of Liara and Garrus...

Liara and Garrus. Where the hell are they?

"I would listen to the lady, Captain Stirling."

There's Garrus's voice and suddenly, there's a cacophony of noises outside. There's scuffling, and shuffling, and struggling, and shooting, but it's over very quickly, and Garrus and Liara walk into the room with Parasini, two men in uniform and body armor, and a woman I guess is Kaira Stirling held between them in tow. Garrus walks up to us - well, Shepard, really, since I'm still cloaked - and matches her relaxed posture easily.

"Shepard. Looks like you were right, after all," he says easily.

"Nice work, Vakarian. Miss Parasini?" Shepard looks past the turian at the Internal Affairs agent.

Parasini just smiles and shakes her hand. "I don't know how you knew, Commander, but thanks to you, we've got the administrator, the majority of the corrupt security officers, and Lorik Qui'in in custody on a variety of charges. What about the evidence Qui'in gathered?"

"It's gone," Shepard tells her. "If it was ever here to begin with."

Parasini sighs in frustration. "Well, it's a shame. I would've loved to nail him for corruption. But I guess the committee will have a field day with the misappropriations and conspiracy charges. You couldn't recover anything from Qui'in's terminal?"

"Take a look," Shepard gestures towards the upturned table with the terminal still blinking, looking for a boot disc. Is it sad that what amazes me the most about this scene isn't that Shepard just anticipated a double-cross and double-crossed the double-crossers, or that all that went down and I had no clue this shit was happening, but the fact that we're in the twenty-third century, and shit _still_ uses boot discs?

The other woman quickly waves one of her men forward, and they dismantle the terminal. "We'll take it with us. Perhaps forensics will be able to do anything with it, even though I doubt it," she says as they carry it off. "At any rate...thank you for your help, Commander Shepard. If you'll come by my office, I'll have my secretary file your garage pass for you to pick up at your convenience. I hope you find what you're looking for."

Parasini and her troopers pull out quickly and neatly, and within minutes, all that's left is me, Shepard, Garrus, and Liara, and one bullet-ridden corridor. Wow. That was...and I didn't even have to do anything. Or get to do anything. Man, I feel useless now. Why the hell did Shepard have me come down here if she had everything under control?

"You can come out now, Grayson."

Oh, I'm still cloaked. A touch to my omni-tool's command interface fixes that, and then Shepard's looking at me with amusement. "I...what just happened?" is all I manage.

She slaps me on the shoulder and we all trudge out of the ruined office building.

"Come on, I'll explain on the way."


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter Thirteen**

The Mako ride to Peak 15 is a little more sedate than the last time on Therum, mainly because the snowstorm's actually forcing Shepard to go slow. Well, slow_er_. It's not like zero visibility, gusting winds, and billowing snow and hail are enough to make Shepard go at a slow, safe speed, no siree, not at all.

Although, fortunately, this time I get to sit up front with Shepard, and I actually get to _see_ out the windows just how crazily she's driving. You know what I said last time about the worst part being not able to see anything? I take that back. I take it all back. Actually _watching _the ground bob up and down and shit slamming into the windshield as Shepard drives around at breakneck speeds with that evilly gleeful grin on her face is just fucking _freaky_.

"I still don't understand what happened back there, Commander," I finally manage after getting my insides under enough control to be reasonably sure I won't empty my lunch all over the insides of the cockpit.

"We were contacted by Miss Parasini to assist in her investigation, in exchange for a garage pass. She wanted us to convince the local branch manager of Synthetic Insights to testify in a hearing against the administrator. Allegedly, Lorik Qui'in acquired account statements and payroll information that implicate the administrator in less than reputable dealings, and he refused to testify without it."

"Okay, I follow so far." That's about the way I remember it going from the game.

Shepard shrugs, pulls the Mako hard to the left to avoid a sudden boulder popping out of nowhere, and resumes our course. "He told me that the information was kept on his office terminal, but that the administrator knew of it and would likely send his own men to retrieve it."

"Still following."

"A couple of things didn't add up. Why would Qui'in keep such vital information on his office terminal?" she glances over at me, and I'm wondering how the hell she can drive, and swerve around obstacles without actually _watching_ where she's going...but somehow she does. And that really, really scares me.

"Second," she continues, thankfully looking back out the window, "how does Qui'in, a branch manager and COO come across accounting information? The _administrator_'s personal accounting information, no less. I suppose he could have come across anomalies in Synthetic Insight's bookkeeping and followed up from there, but still..."

Garrus chimes in at this point from the back. "So Shepard had me dig around a bit," he adds over the intercom. "The Synthetic Insights office is relatively new to Port Hanshan. Lots of import fees and relatively high operations costs. Not a lot of support from the port authorities, and they were in negotiations to expand their business on Noveria. Qui'in was deliberately digging for information on Anoleis, probably trying to find some kind of information in order to sweeten the deal for them."

"And then Parasini came along," Shepard continues. "Looking into the administrator's records and investigating him for corruption. If she found out Qui'in had hold of vital information..."

"Then Anoleis could find out, too," Garrus finishes. Wow, I'm starting to actually see the development of the...total in-sync-ness of these two. Holy crap, they're finishing sentences already.

"Okay...still doesn't explain how you knew Qui'in was in on it, and why you needed me."

"Oh, I didn't _know_ for sure, not until you told me that the terminal had been wiped," Shepard replies.

"But you suspected."

"Yeah. Qui'in was a little _too _eager to get his hands on the information. My guess is that he figured making a deal with the administrator would be more profitable for him in the long run. Aside from him, us, Parasini, and the administrator, no one knew he supposedly kept the evidence on his work terminal. Which in itself is fine, but when the entire building is deserted..."

I'm starting to see...I think. "So you're thinking after he talked to you, he called Administrator Ass-hat, told him that you were poking around, and that he would make sure the intel didn't reach you...for a price."

"Something along those lines," Shepard laughs briefly at my nickname for him. "Someone had to make sure the building was empty, and someone sent those troops."

"How do you know it wasn't Parasini?"

Shepard just grins ferally at that question. "I didn't. That's why you were there, Grayson. Extra insurance. I had to make Parasini believe I was taking an extra precaution against Qui'in double-crossing us, but you were really there in case _she_ did."

"I still don't get how you saw it," I finally manage after a minute of trying to wrap my head around it. "I mean, Anoleis could've just sent the security forces on his own accord because, like you said, he found out about the fact that Qui'in had the evidence."

"He could've," Shepard admits, "but if that were the case, then Qui'in would've been afraid of Anoleis actually _finding_ it. I doubt he would rig his only trump card on the administrator to self-destruct, leaving him with nothing. The alternative is that the evidence never existed, and was a ploy by Qui'in to blackmail Anoleis, or fabricated by Parasini to build a case against the administrator. Either way, the _only_ one who profits from the evidence going up in smoke is Anoleis. But this was the perfect opportunity for both Anoleis and Qui'in...Synthetic Insights gets a better business deal, and Anoleis stalls the investigation into him for lack of evidence."

"Also, we intercepted a brief comm burst from Qui'in's omni-tool to a security office. Don't know what was said, it was too brief to intercept and read, but shortly thereafter, there was a lot of activity within Port Authority," Garrus supplies from the back seat. "Shepard had us monitor comm traffic between Anoleis's known associates in Port Authority and Qui'in with Parasini, just in case."

"And keep an eye on Parasini, I bet," I mutter, but Shepard hears. Damn, how good is that woman's hearing?

"You bet," she says.

My head's spinning, because right now, this is not making sense to me, but at the same time it is. Qui'in was _not_ supposed to have cut a deal with Administrator Ass-hat. This wasn't supposed to happen. At all. And...how the hell? I mean, just...what the fuck? I mean...it makes sense, from a strictly cutthroat business point of view...that Qui'in would actually use the info to blackmail Anoleis, and him coming back with a quid-pro-quo.

Dammit, Q, you gotta warn me when you pull shit like this! Oh, wait, you did. Goddammit, if the plot I know is all going straight to hell, then my only advantage in this fucked up universe is going down the drain fast. I hope that was an isolated incident, because the major events still seem to be pretty much along the same lines, but you know what they say about small things adding up...

Speaking of small things, we actually had clear sailing through the Mako garage, which was weird. Because I'm _sure_ there was a geth ambush there. I remember dying in there quite a bit, until I figured out I could just unlock the nearest Mako and ignore the fight. But there were no geth. Like, what the hell? Not that I'm complaining and all, but that feeling that I had, that the other shoe was just waiting to drop? It hasn't gone away.

And when there's no geth on the way to Peak 15, I just _know_ there's something very, very wrong here, because as bad as my memory is, that's not something I forget. Shepard pulls up in front of the facility after about an hour and a half long drive, and for a moment, we just look out the window at the snow-ridden facility entrace. Yup, it's still blocked. Guess it was too much to ask for that we could just drive the Mako in there, wasn't it.

"All right," Shepard finally says after eyeing the radar display for a bit. "Dismount. We're going in on foot. No point in wrecking yet _another_ Mako and getting us stuck here."

I'm not sure if I imagined it, but at the mention of _wrecking another Mako_, I could swear I heard Garrus whimper. Do turians whimper? He certainly looked ready to whimper when he saw the remains of the last Mako we had. The one that got melted by a laser to the face by a geth colossus? Yeah, that one. We all hop out after fastening on our helmets - even Shepard isn't risking hypothermia and frostbite and whatever else you can get by having your face directly exposed to extreme arctic-level cold.

And there's the side hatch to the garage that was our entrance in the game, and likely will be again. I wrack my brain trying to remember if there was anything behind, but all I can come up with is probably some light geth ambush. Of course, considering the way things have gone to tell lately, it might be a _big_ ambush. Hell if I remember.

The hatch cycles open, and Shepard and Garrus take point. I hit my cloak and fizzle out of sight behind them as I bring up the rear behind Liara. The garage is dark and quiet...there's a couple of vehicles there; not quite Makos, but on the same chassis. Probably civilian or research cars to move around in this weather. I can't tell in this darkness if they're intact or not. Our little column advances, until Shepard holds up a clenched fist.

"Hold up," she mutters over our comms. "We got a body."

Liara takes one look at it and then turns around and walks a few steps away. Garrus just winces. After sweeping the room one last time, I peer over Shepard's shoulder. It's a dead krogan, and from the looks of it...he's been half...eaten? What the hell?

The moment I realize the implications of that, my rifle snaps back up and I sweep the room again. But there's no clatter in the walls, no ominous rumbling, just dead silence. Fuck, are the rachni loose _already_?

I kind of wish I had Shepard's shotgun now, because my sniper rifle probably isn't going to be doing me a lot of good against hordes of giant man-eating bugs. I guess there's always my pistol...As we continue to make our way through the garage, there's more corpses...this time of geth, though. Amongst all the rocket troopers and regular geth platforms, there's the giant red shape of a juggernaut, its paint scuffed and scratched, and its armor rent and pockmarked. It's hard not to shudder when you think of the claws that did this kind of damage to an armored machine.

Oh, who am I kidding, it's abso-fucking-lutely _terrifying_. Sweeping my light down along the juggernaut's form, I find something to perk me up, though. Its geth pulse rifle is still intact and charged. Heh...this is going to be fun. The thing's heavy, but nothing I can't handle - thank heavens for the physical conditioning Miranda made me go through. The rifle's a bit unwieldy, and the controls are unfamiliar, especially since they aren't like, conveniently labeled. In fact, they're not labeled at all, so I end up having to experiment with it a bit until I find the safety and the fire selector. Because unlike the goddamn Avenger, this thing's actually got semi, charge, and pulse modes.

Hell yeah! _Now _we're talking! I may not be able to hit jack shit with a regular assault rifle, but if this thing can spool up like a mini-minigun, then by sheer volume of fire, I should hit something, right? How's the saying go again? If not accuracy, saturation? The garage leads us to an elevator, and I end up having to pick up the pace a little to catch up with rest of the squad.

"Find yourself a new toy, Grayson?" Shepard asks with an amused grin as she holds the elevator door for me. She probably saw the gun lifting itself off the ground as if by magic when I picked it up, before my cloak extended around it. I'm still not sure how personal cloaks work. They can extend over short ranges and inanimate objects, like I could probably hide a child by having it hug my leg. But the moment you start ejecting from it, it fizzles out. I guess it has something to do with the outgoing matter or energy disruption the optical cloak, or something. Hypersonic rounds tend to do that.

"Souvenir for Tali," I reply with some levity despite the prospect of facing a mountain full of rachni. Of course, using the pulse rifle is going to negate my cloak, because unlike my sniper rifle, it's not as efficient to break fire, re-cloak, and shift positions. This thing's basically putting me in front, point-and-shoot, and hope nothing gets through the wall of fire. Yeah, I'm only going to be using that if I absolutely have to. But...it's still nice to know I can bust out a BFG if I have to.

The elevator ride up is quiet, and the dim cabin almost makes me expect to hear elevator music. "What do you think happened here?" Liara finally breaks the silence.

"I don't know," Shepard admits, "but it looks like the geth ran into something they couldn't handle. Whatever it is, I'm sure your mother has the answers."

So am I, but I'm not about to advertise that.

"What do you think could've caused that kind of damage to the geth, Commander? And, uh...eaten that krogan?" Yeah, that half-digested krogan was pretty disturbing to look at. I don't even want to explain it more, because just _thinking_ about it is going to be giving me nightmares. Great, yet another memory to forever banish from my mind at dinnertime.

"I have no idea. Something with claws. Sharp claws."

"And an appetite for krogan, apparently," Garrus adds cheerfully. "We should've brought Wrex."

Shepard just jabs the turian in the chestplate in good humor. "There will be _no_ feeding my crewmembers to strange alien species, is that clear, Mister Vakarian?"

"Yes, ma'am," he mock salutes.

The lift suddenly grinds to a stop and then reverses direction and just drops a couple of meters straight down before the safeties kick in and bring it to a screeching halt. Thank heavens that even in the age of mass effect field-driven elevators, mechanical safeties are still in place. The cabin is bathed in red emergency lights - why are all emergency lights in science fiction red, anyway? I mean, it makes it really bloody hard to see shit, you'd think that emergency lighting would make getting _out_ of the emergency easier.

That being said, we're all picking ourselves off the floor, some of us faster than others. I've never been a fan of rollercoasters before, or these drop tower thingies they have at Six Flags, and this feels way too much like one for my liking. My cloak's still intact, though, and before I can actually warn her, Shepard takes a step back from where she's helping Garrus get back on his feet - turians seem to have _real_ trouble bending at the waist, for some reason - and trips right over my prone form, sending her tumbling back to the ground right on top of me.

"Oww...Commander, mind getting off of me?" You know all that combat armor and gear she wears? It's really bloody heavy.

"You calling me fat, Grayson?" she shoots back easily, but stands up and chuckles.

I get up on my feet and look over to see her grinning face almost right up in mine. I'm still cloaked, but somehow she can tell _exactly_ where I am. Goddamn freaky as hell. Oh god, I'm starting to sound like Zaeed, aren't I? Before I can reply, though, a computerized voice echoes through the cabin.

"Main power off-line. Facility VI off-line. Emergency backup power units off-line. Warning: facility core temperature will reach inhospitable levels in twenty-seven minutes. Main power off-line. Facility VI off-line. Emergency backup power units off-line. Warning..."

So I alter the response I was going to utter, and simply go with the time-honored, "No shit, Sherlock," directed at the announcement rather than Shepard.

Damn power's out, I forgot about that bit. But I thought there was supposed to be enough juice left to kick us up to a level? Garrus is already fiddling with the panel. "No power," he confirms, "at all. We're dead in the water, as you humans like to say. Which, to turians, is a much bigger deal, trust me."

Oh, right, _that_ line. I can't really help myself as I almost giggle - and I'll never admit that if you ask about it! - drawing strange looks from Garrus. "I've seen turians swim," I tell him between chuckles. He just stares at me for a moment, then gives me that toothy grin of his. How come I'm cloaked but everyone and their godmother can tell exactly where I am? Like, seriously? I'm bloody invisible! Or...supposed to be, anyway. I look down and check, just to make sure. Yep, still invisible.

"Hah! I suppose you just might have." He turns to Shepard. "So, now what's the plan, Commander?"

"Simple," the Commander pries the doors open just a little, enough to figure out we're right smack in between floors, and lets go again. Damn, that woman's strong. "We climb our way out."

And without further ado, she pulls out her shotgun and perforates the ceiling before any of us can do or say anything other than cringe as the report of her krogan-sized weapon echoes in the small cabin and pieces of hot and molten metal shower down on us. When the gun finally clicks and starts to automatically vent, Shepard looks up at her handiwork in satisfaction. Where the ceiling used to be is now a thin mesh where the plating has been Swiss-cheesed by Shepard's mad barrage.

"Well? What're you waiting for?" she asks as she knocks the remainder out with the stock of her still-cooling shotgun and grabs onto the ledge, pulling herself up. Liara just does that biotic sphere thingy of hers and levitates up, leaving me and Garrus to look at each other, then back up at Shepard in sync.

"Well?" she asks, with her hip cocked and a smirk on her lips. "Are you coming, gentlemen?"

Oh joy.

T

As we make our way through the station, I'm starting to think just how much like a zombie horror game this has become. The original Mass Effect was creepy and scary at times, sure, but it wasn't ever anything like this. Dark, empty...kind of like Dead Space. The only thing that's around us is the faint creaking of the structure as the winds rush past it outside, our footsteps, and nothing more. Not even the air circulators. Or the venting and air conditioning. Nothing.

And all along the way we encounter the dismembered and torn apart bodies of geth. It's like a fucking slasher flick, only without the blood. In fact, it's so much like Dead Space that I almost expect one of those exomorphs to come bursting out of a wall without warning. Okay, don't give Q any ideas. Rachni are bad enough, we don't need mind-fucking tentacled fucking exomorphs on top of the Reapers.

After climbing out of the elevator shaft - which involved another poor door being subjected to Shepard's attempt to cycle a semi-automatic shotgun on fully automatic - and getting out into the main floors, Shepard just made a beeline for the central command room with the VI core and its auxiliary power systems. Uhm...yeah, let's not mention how we got a hold of the facility layout, shall we? The process involved would probably have broken just about every intellectual property and cybersecurity law back home.

By now, the facility alarm we heard in the elevator has died down, probably from lack of power, and the air's getting cold enough that all the water in the air is condensing and frosting over on every free surface. I'm just happy that the combat boots on my armor have pretty good soles, because otherwise we'd be slipping and sliding around like a cow on ice. Props to whoever can figure out where _that_ quote came from.

I don't know if rachni can stand extreme cold or not, but considering the fact that in the game you had to fight your way through them outside, too, I'm guessing they can stand it for at least a little while. Which leaves me kind of torn on whether or not we want to turn the heat back on, because while we don't really mind the cold in our armors, our weapons would probably not like having to deal with all the moisture that'll collect on them once they start heating up. Yeah, I can't see that being healthy for them. At all.

We finally reach the VI core, a large set of double doors with "Central Station" stenciled on them that, wonder of wonders, refuses to open. Right, no power. No power, no hacking, so I just shrug and reply in negative when Shepard toggles her comms and calls for me. Then she nods briefly, looks back at the door, and starts pulling out a long piece of cable from her omni-tool. Wait, why is she attaching cable to the door...

...I should've guessed. She's attaching a blasting cap now. Detcord. Wonderful, Shepard's a bloody pyromaniac. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just...I had kind of hoped she was a little more _sane_? We all take a step back at the unspoken order, and she just taps her omni-tool, and the detcord does its job. Fortunately, it does so with a minimum of fuss and noise, except for the hideous clang of the steel door hitting the ground, and we all step into the VI core, sweeping it to make sure there's no surprises. Ten seconds later, and all of us reconvene at the center of the room. I shut down my cloak...the room's clear, for now.

Just like in the game, there's three doors here, and all the locks are dead from lack of power. I turn to my left, where the power junction was in the game's mission. It's still there. Only, well, in about a million pieces. Fuck, what the hell happened here? Now that I think about it, the entire room looks like Hurricane Katrina came through here. Equipment is strewn across the ground, consoles and terminals shredded, cables hanging loose from the ceiling, panels thrown all over the place...your quintessential mess. Everything you need to royally ruin my day. Except for a bunch of rachni.

Shepard seems to be looking at the power junction and have reached the same conclusion as me. Fortunately, there's nothing that blowing up would make any better. "Can you fix it?" she just asks me.

"Not sure about that, Commander." My omni-tool scanner runs over the broken equipment. It's not so much that it's busted...it's _shredded_. Like a litter of rachni used it for a scratching post, or something. "In all honesty, it just needs parts replaced. Unless you've got spare superconducting electronics laying around, there's not much I can do. Damage like this can't really be jury-rigged."

She nods in agreement. "Yeah, seems like it. Alternatives?"

"Hmm..." I hum in thought for a moment. "A manual bypass might work. Circumvent this box completely and jack the power directly from the source into the door actuators. Without the power conditioning systems in the junction, it'll probably fry the motors, but it'll probably cycle the door before it goes."

Great, wasn't this exactly what I'd told my students back in my TAing days _not_ to do? Oh, the irony...Okay, trail the power lines, find the generator. It's...oh hell, nevermind that idea. "Commander?" I call over. "I hope you got more of that detcord. Because this generator's a goner."

In hindsight, that was perhaps not the best thing to say, because the moment I tell her she's free to blow the doors, her face lights up like a kid in a candystore. Man, I gotta talk to her about that. That's a scary woman right there. I don't remember the Shepard from the games being this explosion-happy. It's almost...Mythbustery. Hell, even Renegade Shepard didn't have this penchant for wanton property damage.

"You sure there's no power to this room?" Shepard looks at me questioningly.

I just shrug. Hey, architecture and power systems aren't exactly my forte, you know. "I'd guess that if we could gain access to the VI core and boot it up, it can probably find a way to power these doors quicker than I can. Getting power to the VI core is the problem. Someone's been tearing through the building without regard for leaving anything intact, so I'm guessing it won't be looking any better down there."

"And you're sure just slapping some omni-gel on it isn't going to work?"

"Not everything can be fixed by omni-gel, Commander. It can't re-create superconducting microelectronics." At least I don't think it can. I'm a bit sketchy on it, but I figure it works with the omni-tools microfabricator kind of like a block of raw materials. The fabber itself has quite a few limits due to its size, and there's some things like good old metallurgy that it just can't replace. It has me stymied, though, that you could actually use it in the game to bust open a lock or skip a minigame. I'm guessing Shepard did in the game what Shepard does out here...use the omni-gel to fab herself some detcord.

That's actually a pretty scary thought. "Besides," I add, "if the generator's dead, then no amount of fixing it is going to get it to run, anyway."

"Take a look, anyway. Take Vakarian with you. Liara, on me."

I look over at the turian, who just shrugs, swaps his sniper rifle for an assault rifle, and trudges over to me. All right, then, time to find us a VI. There's a maintenance hatch in the rear of the room that, if I remember right, should lead us straight to the VI core. With a bit of effort, the two of us muscle the hatch open, leaving staring down a dark, black maintenance shaft. With the torn up remains of a ladder at my . Who knows what's lurking in the dark. And how the hell does Shepard open one of these doors by herself when me and Garrus barely manage it?

"So..." I start, looking over at Garrus. "I don't suppose you'd like to go first?"

He just grins and shakes his head. "I'm following you, remember?"

Great. All right, here goes nothing. I hit the optical cloak on my armor along with the audio dampers and drop over the edge, suppressing the childish - but somehow strangely compelling - urge to yell _Cowabunga!_ as I drop. Yeah, that would've totally ruined the purpose of the audio dampers. Although seeing the look of complete incomprehension on Garrus's face would totally have been worth it. And down into the rabbit hole we go...

I land with a soft thud and drop into a crouch to absorb the impact just like Miranda taught me - not that it was a very far fall to begin with, I guess it was only about two meters or so. Heh..._only_ two meters. Not six months ago I would've considered anything over half a meter to be a pretty far drop for me. A quick sweep of the room in thermal view doesn't reveal anything, and I click the send button on my radio.

"It's clear."

A few seconds later, Garrus drops through the chute behind me. I drop my tactical cloak, and both of us turn on our flashlights - mine on my pistol, his on his armor's wristguard. Thank you, Tali, for giving this universe's equivalent of Picatinny rails. It looks like a server room, really, with stacks of drives and machines lined up along the walls. So even in the age of quantum computing, VIs take up an obscene amount of memory and computing power. Good to know.

The center of the room has a terminal, probably for primary maintenance access and software upgrades. I guess it couldn't hurt to try...the power button does nothing. Figures, with the power out and everything. Maybe there's a backup power supply around here somewhere? Most dedicated server rooms have them, at least short-term, so they can survive blackouts with a minimum of fuss and downtime. And getting the VI online is probably going to help with a lot of stuff...like getting us a train over to Rift Station where Benezia is. If she's still over there. At this point, I don't really know what to expect, because there's just a whole heap of dead geth and no rachni in sight.

As expected, though, the terminal and pretty much all the equipment in the room is shredded, and even if we could boot up the VI, I'm not sure if it'd be able to tell us anything, considering it's memory is kind of...over here, and some over there, and generally just littering the floor in little pieces. Well, let's try anyway.

"Hey, Garrus?" I call over.

"Yeah?"

"You see a power supply anywhere? Generator, emergency backup batteries, anything?"

There's a crunch and tinkling of breaking glass as he walks over, only his flashlight indicating his position. "I think so. I may have just...stepped in it."

I can't help it. It really can't, but my face just sinks down into my hand. "Don't tell me it was a liquid-cell generator and you stepped on them?" I ask.

"You'll be happy to know I actually saved two cells," Garrus informs me helpfully, popping out of the darkness with two of the blue-tinted cylinders in hand. They're kind of like liquid lead-acid batteries at home, cylinders with chemicals whose reaction produces an electric current. Only, like, Mass-Effecty. They go into a big thing that looks a bit like one of those AA chargers, only bigger, and then provide power from there. From what I've learned, it's a pretty cheap and common way to do backup power, because the liquid cells are stable, non-toxic, and cheap. And the generator itself is simple and robust enough to be deployed just about everywhere and in extreme conditions.

"Great, you find the generator that goes with those?"

Garrus just jerks his head towards the side of the room. "It's over there in that direction. But judging from the looks of this place, I don't think you're going to like what you're going to find. I stopped as soon as I found the cells."

"Only one way to find out." I head over in the direction he indicated, and my flashlight falls on something that makes me stop dead in my tracks and my heart start beating a mile a minute. It's greyed and ashen, the body long cooled in the frigid air, but it's unmistakable.

"Commander?" I call on my radio. "You better come down here."

You know how I was wondering where the heck all the rachni were?

Yeah. There's one right there, on top of the power generator.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter Fourteen**

"What is that?" Shepard asks as she prods the dead rachni with her boot.

"I...I think it's a rachni, Shepard," Liara offers cautiously as she examines the carcass. "They're supposed to be extinct since the krogan wiped them out."

"Are you sure?" The Commander looks skeptical. Understandable, considering she's looking at a specimen of an entire race that was supposedly wiped out a couple of centuries ago.

Liara just shrugs and looks through her omni-tool's database. "I'm pretty sure. It matches the records from the Rachni Wars. Genetically...it's almost identical. This is impossible!"

"I know that, but then how did this one get here?"

"Perhaps someone at Peak 15 was cloning them? The rachni may be extinct, but I'm sure there's a lot of genetic material floating around the black markets," Garrus suggests.

I open my mouth to say something, but then it probably wouldn't be the best time to let them know that, yes, this rachni is kind of a clone, or the spawn of a cloned queen, at any rate. "Wherever it came from, it probably tried to eat this generator or something and electrocuted itself. Which is good, because that means there was juice when it went down and we can try powering up the systems," I say instead.

"Do it," Shepard orders sharply. "Let's find out if there's any more of these things."

Liara looks ashen at that proclamation. "Shepard, the rachni were a highly intelligent race that had control over a large part of the galaxy during their prime! We can't kill them if these are the last of their kind!"

"Whether we kill them or not depends on them. If they are as intelligent as you claim, then we should be able to reason with them. If not..." Shepard turns on Liara. "If not, then we'll make sure they are not a threat anymore. There was a reason the krogan wiped them out; they were a threat to the galaxy."

Damn, that's kind of cold. I mean, I guess I'm kind of more biased towards the rachni's case, knowing that they were manipulated by the Reapers the first time around, but Shepard just basically said she'd wipe them out all over again without a second thought. And here I thought she'd be pure Paragon. Man, I hope she doesn't go all Renegade on me, because that would just _suck_. Renegade Shepard's really fucking scary.

"Look," I interject, trying to forestall any further argument, "why don't we try and start up the VI and find out what happened here. For all we know these rachni reacted on instinct and thrashed the place because they didn't know any better. Or maybe the geth provoked them. And until we find any of the actual staff, the VI's our best bet at answers."

It's really strange that there's none of the research staff around. I mean, there were tons of geth, and I guess the rachni dead are...well, that's a good question, actually. This is the first rachni corpse we've come across, so either they policed their bodies, or...they didn't suffer any casualties against the geth. Now that's a freaky thought. Unless they, like, y'know, ate their dead. Like that krogan in the garage. And potentially the research staff. Which makes a strange sort of sense, because geth are kind of hard to digest. And I wouldn't want to eat off an electrified platter, either.

"Go ahead, Lieutenant."

Let's hope that I didn't just write a check I can't cash, because, well, the terminal and the VI memory banks are pretty dang trashed. Taking the cells from Garrus and shoving the rachni corpse aside with a booted foot, I locate the openings to slide the liquid power cells into and rotate them in place. Some omni-gel on the rest of the circuitry later, just in case, and I flip the big on switch. The generator stutters and whines for a second, before gaining in pitch and then thrumming to life.

"Looks like we're in business," I tell Shepard and then head over to the VI console. Now comes the hard part...seeing if we can even boot this VI. Well, let's see. The holographic screen comes to life and boot lines start scrolling as error messages pop up left and right. I guess I'll just deal with them the same way I deal with errors on Windows machines...ignore them and hope they go away. Finally, the scrolling stops, and one big error pops up.

_VI core memory damaged. Unable to locate boot sector_.

I'm guessing the boot sector is any one of the million pieces of solid-state drives strewn across the floor. _Crunch_. Which the squad's walking through right now. I don't think _any_ amount of omni-gel can fix this. But maybe...

Thank heavens for Cerberus's OCD about stuffing everything and the kitchen sink into their operatives' toolboxes. In this case, that includes a remote data access program, which, well, I think they intended for me to use to steal valuable intel off some top-secret harddrives. Or terminals. Or whatever they use these days. Now, though, I'm hoping it'll let me bypass the VI startup and just link straight to whatever memory is still intact, and just dump it into my omni-tool. Gotta love those old PC tricks. It's going to take a hell of a lot longer to find what we're looking for there, but it's the only thing I can think of right now.

The omni-tool pings as it finishes downloading everything it can, and then starts defragmenting it. "Well, Commander, I got good news and bad news." I look up at her. "Good news is, we've got lab reports, staff lists, security logs, even some camera footage. Bad news is that the VI won't be helping us out getting out of here, and sorting through all of this is going to take a while...and I'd _really_ prefer doing that aboard the _Normandy_, rather than in this place."

"Agreed," she nods and holsters her shotgun. "Take everything you can get, then get back up there. We'll have to make our way outside the old-fashioned way. The layout indicates there's a transit station not too far away. Maybe we can access the last couple of destinations from there."

"Be right there, Commander. Why don't you go to work on those doors upstairs, I'll be up in a minute. Garrus can keep me company."

"Sounds good. Come on, Doctor T'Soni."

Garrus and I stay just a little bit longer, until my omni-tool beeps, telling me that it's finished grabbing everything that was grab-able. "Ready to go?" the big turian asks me.

"Yup."

As we head back to the maintenance shaft, I notice that where the ladder used to be are now large hand- and footholds in the metal wall. Huh...probably courtesy of Shepard's shotgun or omni-tool. Considering the lack of shooty noises earlier, I'd put my money on her omni-tool. Handy.

I've got my feet on the first set of them and am reaching up for the next ones, when Garrus's flashlight suddenly swivels around behind me. "What is it?" I ask, looking down and trying to see anything in the darkness.

"You hear that?"

"Hear what?"

His light swings around, and he's got his assault rifle out now. He's dead silent, and I strain to listen...there's a faint trickling. Almost like water running, but not. It's weird, it sounds like it's coming from the VI room.

"That," Garrus says, his rifle and light now pointing down the way we just came.

Well...shit. I'm willing to bet Murphy's Law is going to pick right now to drop a horde of rachni on us. "I hear it. Let's get out of here," I confirm and hurry up my climb.

"Right."

I've just reached the top when the noise we heard gets really loud. Yeah, it's clacking of clawed feet on metal. I reach around my back for the pulse rifle and switch it to automatic. Its targeting light and laser come on, and shining back at me are dozens of rachni carapaces storming towards us.

Fuck.

I hate it when I'm right.

"Garrus, hurry the hell up and get your bony ass up here!" I yell at him, then switch the comms to get Shepard on the line. "Commander, we could use some help back there!"

There's the sound of gunfire over the comms as she replies tersely. "We're a bit busy here, Lieutenant. There's bugs pouring out of the goddamn _elevator_." There's a shriek of a rachni, the crackle of biotics, and I think I can hear Shepard mutter, "Bugs, I _hate_ bugs," before the connection terminates.

"Great," I mutter as I spool up the pulse rifle. Garrus is halfway up now, and I just press the trigger and hold it down, saturating the corridor behind him with gunfire. Gotta hit _something_ with this, right?

"Garrus?" I can see the rachni coming now. Some of them are running right for us, uncaring if they get hit. Some die, some are crippled. The pulse rifle's virtue is its rate of fire, it can rip shields to shreds very easily, but not armor. But it's enough to blow limbs off them. Still, they keep coming, climbing over the bodies of their dead and dying. And fuck my life, some are walking _up the_ _fucking walls_.

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see him climbing over and dropping to a knee, his assault rifle out and unfolded. It makes sense that we hold here, this is the most defensible position for us to bottle up the incoming rachni in.

I hose down the corridor as best I can, and that temperature gauge is creeping up into the red dangerously fast. "Feel free to start shooting anytime now," I yell at him over the whine of the gun and the screech of the rachni.

He obliges without a word, and the staccato of his assault rifle joins the din. But as often as he has to vent, my gun just keeps heating up and up, and the combat behind us is coming closer. Okay, time for Plan B. Flipping the fire selector on the pulse rifle puts it into charge mode, and I hold down the trigger. The heat sinks hiss as they try to dissipate the built-up heat before reaching capacity. I wonder if I can finish the charge before the safeties kick in and vent the gun?

I head over to the edge and point the gun straight down, right as Garrus stops firing and vents his heat sink. You know, it's only a two meter drop down. Standing down there, you can reach up and touch the floor we're standing on. And the corridor to the VI room isn't very long.

It takes maybe ten, fifteen seconds to get your feet into the footholds Shepard blasted into the wall and climb up. That's about the amount of time it takes for a horde of rachni to pour out of their little hidey-holes and towards us from said corridor. It takes three seconds before the geth pulse rifle hits maximum charge.

And you know what? It takes half a second for that horde of rachni to cook after I release the trigger, sending a brilliant blueish beam straight down at the bottom of the shaft. And about a half second after that for me to realize that, one, firing something that powerful this close was probably a bad idea, because the backblast is coming right back up the shaft.

And two, the gun's _melting_ in my hands. the heat sinks are open and venting steam into the cold air like crazy, but the gun's barrel is partially deformed from the heat. Doesn't look like I'll be using it again anytime soon. Both Garrus and me dive away from the shaft as the backwash roils up, showering us with little bits and pieces of debris. The two of us look at each other and on an unspoken signal, take off running together towards the main control room.

Right towards Shepard and Liara's gunfire.

T

So, you know how I was complaining this was turning into a horror-thriller? Looks like it's turning into a freakish crossover between Dead Space and Left 4 Dead now, because it's like freaking rachni are popping up from places they _shouldn't_ and in quantities that suggest zombies more than exomorphs. Hell, even the game wasn't this hard, because we've spent the entire time running and gunning. The elevator shaft down to the garage? Yeah, not reaching that. Damn shaft was crawling and clogged with rachni last we saw.

So Shepard blasted a door off its hinges, and now we're haphazardly running through the facility trying to get _anywhere_ that's not _here_. Just so you know, for future reference? The extreme cold? It doesn't seem to bother the rachni one bit. Either they're really, really cold-blooded, or they're just that fucking warm. I'm tempted to go with the latter, because they light up my thermal vision like a fucking Christmas tree.

We really have the wrong weapons for this, is pretty much all I can think as we reach a large open area with a catwalk crossing a chasm. I've pretty much lost all track of where we are in the facility, but I know Shepard's kind of navigating by map...I think. She and Garrus really have the only two rachni-killing weapons that seem to work well; her shotgun and his assault rifle. Other than my sniper rifle, two pistols is all me and Liara have between us. And her biotics. Which have actually saved our butts quite a few times, so much so that she's relinquished her pistol to me.

Let me tell you, dual-wielding pistols is not at all like in the movies, because aiming down two sets of sights is really, bloody hard. But it's really useful to have two so you can keep firing while one's venting. Shepard's stopped. Can't really fault her, that catwalk looks really not safe. And the chasm looks really, really deep. I swear, what is it with people putting random chasms in their sci-fi buildings? I mean, really, what's the purpose?

Other than to have dramatic moments like this, of course.

"Tram station's through there, and up two levels," the Commander announces after a second. "Head straight through, maintenance access ladder on the right. Bear straight up, it should go directly to the surface."

"Shall we get going, then?" Garrus asks amiably.

There's just something about this place..."I don't know, Commander, I got a bad feeling about this." I don't know if it's that sixth sense soldiers say they get if they've been on the battlefield long enough, my usual paranoia, or some precognitive gift Q gave me, but something feels really, _really_ wrong about this. We've been running from the rachni since the VI control room, fought them off in droves, heard them follow us. But lately, we haven't actually _seen_ any rachni.

Just heard them.

In the walls.

Behind us. Above us. Beneath us.

But they haven't actually attacked us since we made it to this level.

"I feel it, too, Shepard...a presense...an alien touch..." Liara adds.

Shepard looks at us for a moment, her visor clear. "We have to reach that tram station. It's our only way out."

"I know, but just wait a moment. Listen." Cocking my head to the side, I motion for the rest of the squad to remain still. "You hear anything?"

"Nothing." Shepard replies.

"Nothing," Garrus agrees.

"I don't hear anything," Liara concurs.

There's this really weird idea that's starting to take shape. I don't know how or why, but I've started to learn to listen to that little crazy voice that gives me these crazy ideas. "Look, we've been chased by the rachni since we ran into them. They've clearly been inside this building for a while. All around. Why pick now to attack us, when we were leaving the VI server room? And more importantly, why haven't we seen any of them lately? I refuse to believe we lost them." I see all their faces and the confusion there. It doesn't make sense to them.

In all honesty, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, either, but it's starting to coalesce as I continue on. "We've been hounded at every step since we ran into them. Ambushed, attacked, and chased. And suddenly...nothing. Even if they weren't here before, they could've easily made it to this deck. So why aren't they here? They've cut off every other exit for us."

"We're wasting time, Lieutenant," Shepard tells me impatiently and starts across the bridge.

"No! Wait!" I grab her arm on a sudden, insane thought, and pull her back. "Commander, listen, we tried every exit, right? And were met with heavy resistance?"

"Too much to shoot our way through," she admits.

"But we're here. Doesn't it seem odd? Almost like..."

Like they've been herding us here.

Ah, _fuck_.

And before I can voice that thought, a shadow rises behind Shepard from the chasm, and with a shriek of twisting metal, the catwalk crashes downwards, off a gargantuan body. Shepard just stares at me for a moment with a look that says she _really_ doesn't want to turn around.

I can't really fault her, because that rachni queen?

She's really, _really_ fucking huge.

I mean, human-form Reaper huge.

And she's right in front of us.

She just...rises from the chasm and stares down at us, like we're insects before her. Considering the size difference, that's actually a pretty apt comparison. But then she doesn't _do_ anything. Just stands there for a moment, staring at us. At least I think she's staring at us, I can't really tell with her. Then her massive body lowers itself slightly, as she moves forward and brings it down to our level.

_We are the singer of songs._

All of us jump at the freaky voice in our head, the voice that's half-dead and half-alive. Kind of raspy, neither male nor female. It just _is_, is the best way to describe it, and it's in our bloody heads.

_The song is out of cadence._

Holy crap...I think...I think she's talking to us. Like, actually _talking _right into our _brains_.

"Who are you?" Shepard asks, unfazed by the gargantuan rachni queen before her. Typical Shepard, really.

_We are the singer of songs. The order to chaos. Tamer of the wild aria._

"I don't understand. What song?"

_The home-song. The calm-song. We bring peace to our troubled children. They do not listen any longer. Their song has ceased. They are chaos now._

I tap Shepard on her pauldron. "Uhm...I think she's the rachni queen," I inform her, pulling some of the information from the Peak 15 servers up on my omni-tool, now that it's had time to defrag and sort it. "Says here they received a shipment of a rachni egg a few months back and were trying to either clone or hatch it. The details are a lot of jibberish to me, but it looks like they were successful."

"That's a bit of an understatement," Garrus notes from behind us, his tone a little awed at the sight before us. Can't say I blame him, she's impressively huge, the rachni queen. Did I mention she's freaking tall and freaking talks in our heads?

"Look," I offer Shepard, "maybe this is how they communicate. According to records from the Rachni Wars, they use infrasonic vibrations to talk to each other. Although the records don't say anything about telepathy. I guess to them, it's a song, or a melody of some kind."

_This one understands our songs_.

"Uhh...me?" I point at myself. Just to make sure, because why the hell would she be talking to me.

"Why have you attacked us?" Shepard asks. Go for it, Shep, I'm all for letting her talk to the big, scary rachni queen.

_Our children despair. They wither away from out sooth-songs. We have brought you here. To bring the song to our children._

Shepard turns to look at us and shrugs. "Anyone understand that one?"

Well...Liara looks confused. Makes sense, I suppose, she's a prothean expert, not a rachni expert. Ah heck, worst case I'll blame Miranda making me read up on shit. Heh. "If I may, Commander, the rachni have a bit of a hive mind, I think, at least in the early stages of development. The young are aggressive, wild, and only proximity to the brood mother will calm them until they've learned to survive on their own and calmed down. Even so, I don't think there's ever been a sole rachni. They always live in hives. Separation from the brood mother is likely to cause the young to go insane."

_This one understands our song. We are separated from our children. They suffer. They cry. We cannot soothe them with our song._

"That doesn't sound good..." Garrus notes dryly.

I bite back a _no shit, Sherlock_, and just nod. "I think what happened is that somehow she's lost contact with some of her...offspring, for lack of a better term, and they're rampaging around."

_The defiler of minds has brought us here. The defiler of minds has taken our children. The defiler of mind is singing a song or corruption. The defiler of minds plays the aria of the sovereign of darkness. Like our kin, their song will end our children._

"Why did you attack us?" Shepard demands, fingering her shotgun. I'm not sure that she's got a plan for taking on the rachni queen with just, well, us and our guns, but hey, it's _Shepard_. She doesn't _need_ a plan. Most of the time.

_We mean no harm. Our children who still hear our song, they guide, they herd. We wish to end their pain. To end the defiler of minds._

Shepard blinks and turns to look at us briefly over her shoulder. "You brought us here?"

Well, I'll be damned.

_We sing the song of battle. But the defiler of souls is strong. The defiler of souls has corrupted our children, and our song is dying._

"I think she wants our help, Shepard," Liara says tentatively. "Who is this defiler of souls?"

_She is one who bends a song to her will. She is one of yours, young one. _

"Benezia," I mutter. Well, this has already gone apeshit on the script, so why the hell not. "Where is she? What does she want with you?"

_As we once were corrupted by the song of the ancient harbingers, so we will be again. She brings a song of madness to our children, a song of slavery and servitude to the ancient ones. We cannot save our children. She seeks the gateway to the great resting place. Only we remember. We will not bow to the defiler's will._

Damn, that sounds...almost sad. I have no idea how an incorporeal, alien voice in your head can sound sad, but it does. Well, maybe this is a good opportunity to poke Shepard in the right direction? Not that I hate getting Grunt's Aralakh Company killed, but genocide _really _isn't my cup of tea. And hell, with all the shit that's gone wrong already, who knows how _that_'s going to play out further down the road.

So I step up to Shepard and put a calming hand on her arm cradling the shotgun. At least I hope it's calming. "Look, Commander, I'm just taking a stab at the dark here, but just _how_ many ancient powerful races playing mindgames do we know? Can't be much of a coincidence that we're tracking Saren and the Reapers and come across a rachni who tells us that someone affiliated with Saren is trying to subvert them for his own purposes."

The look the Commander shoots me is so withering I have just a millisecond to realize that I fucked up. Shit, I said too much, and her eyes tell me she knows it, and it promises another grilling in her office. Well, fuck, too late to take anything back now, so I just shrug and smile innocently. "Just a guess, Commander," I tell her.

Shepard holds my eyes for a moment longer before she turns around, apparently deciding that she can trust me for the moment. Good, that could've been ugly otherwise. Oh, I'm under no illusion that it'll get ugly _later_, but thankfully, Shepard's reserving that for when we return to the _Normandy_. "Where do we find her?" she asks the queen.

_The defiler draws near. The sovereign of darkness wonders why our children are few and hesitant. Why her song does not compel them all. We sing war-songs. We sing of strength. But we cannot sing against her._

Well, this isn't at all like the game. No Rift Station, Benezia's coming here, probably wondering why she can't get as many rachni slaves as she wanted. Q, you're _so_ gonna owe me one when this is over. And I'm not talking about a drink. But with all the shit that's diverged from canon so far, this is about par for course.

"If Benezia is coming, she'll know where to find the queen," Garrus notes from behind us. "She'll be coming for her. Trying to subvert her. She needs her compliant to spawn more drones."

"Makes sense," Shepard agrees, shaking off my hand and cocking her shotgun. "Let's see to it that she gets a _warm_ welcome."

T

Well, one good thing came out of this mission going apeshit on canon, at least. Unlike the game, where we ran right into Benezia at Rift Station, _she's_ now coming to _us_. Which means...you guessed it, ambush. Doesn't take long for our two resident expert strategists to figure out where the best places would be, and even the rachni queen promised to play ball and have her kids ready to spring on Benezia's blue ass if she can.

Emphasis on _if_ she can. As far as we know, she's currently engaged in a near-epic battle of wills against Liara's mother, trying to retain control over all the rachni in the station, so we told her to just go ahead and do that if it's too much, because we can handle Benezia. Benezia _and_ a horde of rampaging, berserk rachni? Not so much.

And that's how me and Garrus ended up sitting in the dark - him up in the rafters, and me at the far end of the catwalk, cloaked, and with my sniper rifle out. Shepard and Liara are hiding in the dark somewhere after Shepard and I prepared an explosive surprise for Benezia. She may be a bit of a pyromaniac, but I don't think Shepard ever underestimates anyone. But as prepared as we are, I can't help but feel apprehensive.

The one thing I remember about the Benezia fight from the game was the asari commandos. Those were _tough_ and bloody annoying. For starters, they just wouldn't go down, and their biotics _hurt_. Knowing my luck, they'll probably be with Benezia when she gets here. Well, at least I know what my primary target is going to be.

The worst part about setting an ambush, they say, is the waiting. The whole uncertainty and not knowing exactly when to strike. The boredom and complacency that could endanger you, because you may have to leap into action any second, and any moment of inattentiveness could cost someone their life. Whoever said that _clearly_ never had a giant arachnoid alien with empathic powers as an early warning system, thus freeing you up to play Ms. Pac-Man 3D on your omni-tool.

Kind of makes me wonder if some crazy kid out there ported Space Invaders, too.

All joking aside, watch duty is really, _really_ boring. So when the doors open, I'm more than ready to do something, anything. A look through my TWS scope - this thing's awesome, it's got anything from thermal to IR to some weird ultrasound-radar setting - confirms that a group of asari have just entered, followed by darker shapes of what I assume are geth, since the only part of them that lights up thermal is a small area in their torso.

I click my radio twice to signal Shepard. Three clicks back confirm that she's ready and moving into position. All right, then, time to bag us an asari matriarch.

It's showtime.

In the dark I can't really make out who's who from the thermal view, so I line up the crosshairs with an asari on the edges of the group. The geth are pretty much a triviality compared to those commandos, and if Benezia is following evil-villain cliche, then she'll be in the center of that group of bodyguards.

All right. Target in sight. Let out a slow breath, finger on the trigger. Safety off. Wait for Shepard's signal. One of the asari looks down at her feet, and I turn on the visual and EM filters on my scope and helmet.

The simple, low-tech tripwire sets off a three-second fuse, at the end of which the two flashbangs on either side of the doorway go off. Before the light and sound have faded, a single click comes over the radio, followed by a single word from Shepard.

"Engage."

I pull the trigger and watch with a wince as the asari in my sights is thrown backwards from the hit, the back of her skull exploding in a rather gruesome manner. She didn't even have time to get her barriers up.

No time to feel sick about it. Besides, these commandos are as good as indoctrinated, anyway. Without missing a beat, I watch through the scope as another asari crumples, courtesy of Garrus. My cloak is now out, and the only thing protecting my position is the darkness. Got to hurry things up.

The next commando drifts into my sights. A feather-light touch on the trigger, the sharp crack of the rifle, and my round impacts the asari's barrier. Without hesitation, I press the trigger again and again, sending two more rounds downrange. The high-velocity rounds splatter themselves against the barrier, and then I realize my mistake the second she turns and flickers from view.

Fuck. Muzzle flash.

That's all the time I have as I drop my rifle and reach for my sidearm before she re-appears in front of me, her shoulder planted right in my gut, catapulting me backwards. Fuck, that _hurt_. I tumble across the ground for a few feet, but before the room actually stops spinning around me, something hits me in the ribs, and I can hear and feel the armor creaking under the strain. Dammit, feels like someone just kicked me. Hard.

I roll to the side and onto my back, my pistol finally in my hands. The asari commando's stalking towards me, her hands glowing with biotics. How the hell do I always find myself in this position? So, I do the only thing I can, and pull the trigger as fast as it'll respond.

Seven shots ring out, staggering the biotic, before the gun cycles and vents.

Well...fuck.

With an audible click, the bolt inside moves forward, shaving a new round off the ammo block as the other side of the gun locks open, exposing the large heatsink Tali added. No time to think, I mash down on the trigger again.

Six more shots splash themselves on her barrier.

The seventh penetrates and clips her in the shoulder, disrupting her concentration for a moment. Just long enough for me to get back to my feet. The pistol's still venting, so it's useless for now. All right, time for something creative. Or crazy. Not sure the two are mutually exclusive at this point. My omni-tool blade deploys with an electronic whirr, and without thinking I charge at her.

Goddammit, what wouldn't I give for a forcelance from _Andromeda_ right now. I've never really been good at all those hand-to-hand martial arts classes I took, but damn it if I didn't learn how to use a sword and staff. And a staff would be _really_ handy right about now, because weapons were the only thing I was ever really any good at.

I think the asari is about as surprised as I am by my crazy charge right at her, because she's a split second slow in bringing up her hands to defend herself. A split second is all I need as I crash right into her, ducking and tucking myself into a forward tumble as I pass by her, omni-blade extended. Her eyes go wide with pain for a moment as her blood sprays all over me, and for a moment there, I think I've won.

And then a searing pain shoots up my back, bending me over backwards and sending me flying away from her. When I land and tumble, I can't feel my hands or legs, and I can't move.


	15. Chapter 15

**Author's** **Note**: No, you're not seeing things. Yes, that's two chapters in one day. I won't be able to post next week, as I'll be out of the country on a trip, so I decided to just give you two this week. Enjoy!

**Chapter Fifteen**

My spine is tingling...which is good, it means my back's not broken. But my arms still won't respond. At least I'm numb, because if I wasn't, I'm pretty sure I'd feel like a horde of angry elephants was tapdancing around on my back. Man, I hope that commando isn't coming after me anymore, because they're just as much of a pain in the ass to fight as I remembered from he game.

Nope, no such luck, she's stepping right into my field of view there. Bleeding from a huge hole in her side where the kidneys would be on a human, hunched over and clutching her wound with one hand, the other swirling with biotics. Fuuuuuck. And just like in the game, the commandos absolutely refuse to go down. And I still can't move a muscle.

She stands over me for a moment, then opens her mouth as if to speak. Damn, I swear if she makes some kind of generic bad guy speech, I'm gonna shoot her. Right as soon as I can move again. Before she can say anything, and before I can move again, a clawed leg tears right through her from behind, causing her to let out a wordless scream as she collapses. A rachni warrior stands over me for a moment before skittering away again.

_We stand. We fight. We sing war-songs. The defiler of souls will be no more._

With an unearthly screech, the rachni go to war, pouring out of the walls by the dozens. Well, judging from the screams and screeches and flashes, it looks like we're actually winning. There's the crack of Garrus's sniper rifle, the bark of Shepard's shotgun, the crackle and flash of biotics. Okay, I can't let them fight this fight alone. Gotta get my ass off the ground and moving. Concentrate...try to wiggle your fingers. They feel...tingly. Good. Wrap your fingers around your pistol.

And then suddenly, I can move again, albeit slowly. The feeling in my spine is back, which is a mixed blessing. For one, I can move now. But _fuck_, it hurts like...well, fuck. Like someone shockwaved my spine and damn near broke it. I doubt I'll be running around anytime soon. All right, let's see what we have here. A couple more flashbangs - useless in this melee now - and some frags. And the pistol in my hand, of course. Which by now has vented. All right!

Before I can pick a target, though - and let me tell you, without night vision or thermal imaging, it's really bloody _hard_ to see anything in the dark if you don't want your eyes to go blind from muzzle flashes going into a photomultiplier - the entire room lights up from the brilliant electric blue ball of lightning that's coalescing over the catwalk. Holy friggin' hell...Benezia's levitating herself up and holding it between her hands, kind of like the mother of all biotic attacks.

Yep, it's an attack. She's pushing her hands forward in that classic anime _firing-a-fireball_ kind of pose, y'know, thrusting cupped hands forward from the hip? What the hell is this, Dragonball? The giant shockwave blast freight-trains into the rachni queen's enormous form, staggering her while she's trying to defend herself from asari commandos and geth troopers. A shrill wail of pain echoes through my head as she falls back and then goes silent. The smaller rachni all still and wilt in pain.

Well...shit. This isn't good.

And Benezia's _still_ floating up there like some kinda blue weather balloon, energy crackling across her bright enough to actually light up the dim area.

"_Enough_!" she screams, her voice echoing loudly both outside and inside my head. Man, my shrink would have a field day with this if I kept telling her I keep hearing random people talk in my head.

Can't fault her for effectiveness, though, because everything just...stops. The geth all freeze in their tracks and shoulder their rifles, and the commandos all stand at attention. Shepard and Liara, who were in the thick of it, hold out their weapons and keep a suspicious eye on our enemies, but they're not putting their guns away, at least. Man, I don't remember this fight going this badly for us in the game. Although, I guess, we weren't doing that badly. There's only four out of a dozen or so asari commandos left, and two of them look pretty beat up.

And the dozen or so geth that were left...well, they were too busy getting torn apart by the rachni before they stopped, so I don't really think they were much of an issue in this fight. Oh, and there's Garrus, way over there. The only reason I can see him is because of the light, but he hasn't taken an eye off his scope, either. All right, all right, think. We've got...well, us: a sniper, a crazy vanguard, a biotic, and a nearly-crippled engineer.

They have an asari matriarch, two commandos at full health, and two commandos who're not looking too hot. Shit, did I really just think _full health_? Man, I gotta stop playing games that show you hitpoint bars. But I reckon if there _were_ hitpoint bars, those two would probably be red.

"On the order of the Citadel Council and on my authority as a spectre, I'm placing you under arrest, Matriarch Benezia. You've got one chance to come with us peacefully," Shepard announces, never taking her eyes or gunsights off one of the commandos.

And while all that is going down, I'm heaving myself to my feet on unresponsive legs, using the railing on the catwalk for support. Damn, I have _got_ to get me one of those force lances, even if just to use it as a damn walking stick. Liara's pistol is long gone, so the only weapon I have - unless I can find my sniper rifle in the dark - is the pistol Miranda gave me and that Tali modified. Not like I could handle the recoil of anything heavier without it knocking me flat on my butt right now, anyway.

Man, I _really_ need to stop having to have my ass saved. Not exactly a good track record. Three times in three missions. Miranda's never gonna let me hear the end of this. Hell, _Q_ probably isn't ever gonna let me hear the end of this. If he's even watching, the little omnipotent son-of-a-bitch.

"I wish I could comply, Commander Shepard," Benezia sounds almost sorry. _Almost_. "But we are doing what is best for the galaxy. You could never understand."

"Oh, come on," I spit out, and a part of me idly wonders if I've gone insane, because I've cut off Shepard's reply, but _damn_, Benezia's - and Saren's - holier-than-thou attitudes piss me off. Talking about saving the galaxy, hell, if what's to come in Mass Effect 3 is considered salvation, I'll take my luck fighting as an unbeliever.

Well, that one line managed to get everyone's attention. And by everyone, I mean _everyone_. From our squad to the commandos, to Benezia, hell, even the _geth_ are looking at me now. No place to go but forward, then. "You don't honestly think we're stupid enough to believe your self-justification? _Seriously_?" A hollow laugh escapes my throat, and I can't stop seeing the destruction that Mass Effect 3 will bring. I haven't lived it yet, but hell if there's one thing Bioware is good at, it's telling a story. Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Mass Effect...I haven't lived it, but from what I've seen, I don't _want_ to live it.

"You know _nothing_ of our motivations." Benezia's looking right at me now.

"I know you work with Saren." I hobble my way over to the railing closest to her. "I know you're both working for the Reapers." I lower my voice so that only she can hear me.

"You've been indoctrinated. Come on. You don't think _Sovereign_ is doing this to preserve all life in the galaxy? Riling up the geth, resurrecting the rachni? Haven't you ever questioned _his_ motivations? His origins? A living, sentient ship of unspeakable power that talks straight into your mind? That little, insidious voice in the back of your mind that insists we're the enemy? Don't listen to it."

"I..."

"Have you seen the Reapers' creations? The husks, the ravagers, the marauders? Have you seen what they do to us?" I whisper at her. I know she can hear me. I know the Reapers have specimen of every single Citadel race by now...and some others, on top of that. "They _reprocess _us. They harvest us. Just like the protheans. Why don't you ask _Sovereign_ what happened to the protheans, hm?"

"Silence!"

Suddenly, something tightens around my throat, and I feel myself getting lifted off the ground. An invisible hand constricts around my neck until it's impossible to breathe as I'm raised up to Benezia, until we're eye to eye. Aww, man, why'd she have to go all Vader on me?

I _hate_ Force Choke.

I hate it when Vader does it, and I hate it when anyone else does it. It's such a fucking emo thing to do. _Hi, I don't like you, therefore I will use my magic powers to make you choke in the most dramatic manner possible_. Complete dick-move. And now Benezia's doing it. I've never been great at holding my breath, so I guess I have maybe twenty, twenty-five seconds left before I black out. She's bringing me to right in front of her now.

"You are nothing compared to the sovereign. Insects to his might. You have no idea...no idea what he is capable of," she says, but there's a flicker in her eyes. I can see it.

"I've seen...seen what _Sovereign _will do," I manage to gasp out.

And then I pull a Chris Pine.

'cause in all that haste to choke the life out of me? Benezia forgot to disarm me. My pistol's still in my hand, and I'm close enough where I reckon she can't get her barriers up in time. So I lift the gun and pull the trigger. Benezia screams in pain...yup, I was right. She didn't have barriers this close up. And then she loses concentration and drops us both.

And there's the sole flaw in my otherwise brilliant plan.

We're both hovering over a very, _very_ deep abyss.

I just stretch my arms out, hoping to catch something, _anything_ on the way down that'll stop my fall. As luck would have it, I manage to grab hold of one of the vertical spars on the catwalk, and with an almighty yank, my descent comes to a halt, nearly wrenching my shoulder out of its socket as it does. Well, it beats falling to my death.

Man, climbing up when your only point of contact with the ledge is one arm and a piece of rebar is much harder than it looks in the movies. Especially when you still can barely move and are gasping for air.

"Mother!" Liara's rushing towards where her mother landed on a maintenance platform underneath the catwalk.

_The defiler weakens. We hear our children. They hear our song. We sing peace-songs. We sing calm-songs for them. We sing gratitude-songs for you. Our children are home._

"You okay, Grayson?" Shepard asks as she reaches down and helps me climb up.

I just lie down on my side for a bit, coughing as I try and suck air down into my abused lungs. "Yeah. Peachy, Commander. What about them?" My arm waves in the vague direction of the commandos who, like the geth, are still standing around haplessly in light of their leader being down and having no orders.

"Guess we should get this sorted out and take them into custody." Shepard looks over at Liara for a moment. "What'd you say to her?"

"I-" I stop what I was saying as Garrus heads over to us, and even on a private comm line, I don't feel comfortable having this conversation here, where he's so close by. "I think that's something else to tack onto that talk we'll have later, Commander."

"Oh, most definitely, Lieutenant." She looks over at Garrus, then back at me. "You all right to stand?"

"Yeah, just give me a sec." I'll probably be limping or hunching over for a while, at least till Doc Chakwas can look me over, but I'm fine. Although it'd be nice if we didn't have to fight shit anymore.

Faced with the resurgent rachni horde, Garrus's sniper rifle, and Shepard's shotgun, the remaining commandos thankfully surrender. And the geth...oh, dang, they got torn to shreds by the rachni. Huh. I half expected those commandos to go all samurai on us and commit suicide rather than face capture, or something. Man, I gotta make sure Miranda gets one of them for interrogation. Not that I'm generally a vicious person, but these people resurrected an entire race for the sole purpose of enslaving them. I still can't get Benezia's words from the game out of my mind.

_They were destined to destroy Saren's enemies._

What a bunch of bull. Not to mention that, well, I'm not sure if they're indoctrinated or not, but hell, Benezia should've known better. She should've questioned. Saren broke indoctrination at the end - well, if Shepard was a Paragon, anyway - because he _questioned_ whether what _Sovereign_ was making him do was really for the good of the galaxy. The asari, especially, considering how old their race is, should've asked, should've wondered, should've _doubted_.

And if it helps save lives, I don't really have much of a problem letting Miranda go a few rounds with one of these commandos. And hell, I have no doubt that _Miranda_ is going to have one of 'em screaming for mommy in a fair fight. Well, Shepard seems to have them all under control, so I hobble over to Liara. She's clutching her mother in her arms.

"Mother..."

Benezia's eyes shift to me as I appear in her field of vision over her daughter's shoulder. "The...sovereign is strong. He whispers. He promises. What I did...I thought it was best for...for..."

"He promised a better future. No matter what you wanted, he promised it. Little by little, things that seemed wrong to you started seeming right." I look down at the dying asari matriarch. I know I said Liara seemed kind of standoffish and cold, and I know they weren't on the best of terms, but being the one who shot her mother doesn't make it any easier.

"They were supposed to...to be our vanguard. _Sovereign_ will not stop. But...thank you." She looks up at me, then at her daughter. "For making me see. I no longer have to fight him. I die free from his voice. And Liara..."

I turn away from that. It's private, and I've seen what the death of a parent does to people. So, instead, I head over to Shepard. "Now what, Commander?"

"This seems to be a dead end. But at least we foiled whatever plans Saren had with the rachni," she comments idly as one of the rachni drones pokes a commando in the back to get her to move. "Interesting."

"Yeah, about that..." I wonder what she'll do about the rachni.

"Looks like you were right, Grayson. But what worries me is the ease with which Saren could have gained control of them."

Shrugging my shoulders, I look over at the rachni queen who's perching in the darkness. "To be fair, Commander, it took an asari matriarch and whatever else they did in this facility to do it."

"You got a point there. But if we let the resurgence of them become common knowledge, it could start a galaxy-wide panic. It's been a long time, but not nearly long enough to forget something like three hundred years of Rachni Wars."

_The defiler is gone. She has failed. We take our children. We hide, we nurture, we grow. We sing peace-songs. Never again will the ancient ones sing to our children. When you call on us, we will sing war-songs for our children to fight by your side. _

Shepard considers this for a long moment, and then she just gives a curt nod. "You need to get off-planet. No one can know you exist. Get as far away from Saren as you can. Is there anything you need us to do to free you?"

_Our bonds are broken. Our children have freed us. We will leave. _

And with that, the queen disappears down into the darkness, leaving a lingering voice in my head to whisper..._ You have freed our children. Hear our song in parting. _For a second, before she completely drops out of sight I wince as a splitting headache shoots through my brain. Man, I think I hit my head too hard.

"Something tells me we haven't seen the last of her," Shepard muses. Knowing what's coming, I'm inclined to agree.

T

The trip back to Port Hanshan is relatively quiet, interrupted only when one of the snow-covered mountains behind us erupts in fire. All of us just looked at each other, then at Shepard.

"What?" was all she said in response. "I didn't blow _that _up."

I'm personally guessing that was Rift Station self-destructing for some ungodly reason, or maybe it was the rachni covering their tracks. Hell if I know. By the time we get back to the _Normandy_, though, I'm about ready to jump out of my skin because it's so _quiet_. Liara's lost her mother, but she isn't really acting like anyone I've ever known who just lost a parent. Indifferent comes to mind when I look at her, and I guess this is what makes her so good at being the Shadow Broker later on.

But neither Garrus nor Shepard know what to say to her, and neither do I. I mean, what would I say, _sorry I shot your mother, but she was kinda choking me to death_? Still, I suppose I should say _something_. Which is why I'm standing on Deck Two, in front of the door to the storage area that's become Liara's quarters, after a shower and change of clothes. And I still haven't got a clue as to what to say to her.

"Problems, Lieutenant?"

I jump slightly at the sound of Chakwas's voice. "Kinda, Doc. I just shot her mother."

"I see." And as much as I want to say, _no, you don't_, the way Chakwas says it, her tone, the look in her eyes...I can't help but think that yes, she actually _does_ see.

"Yeah. I mean, what do I tell her?"

"You did your duty, Lieutenant. I'm sure she understands that."

"Intellectually, sure. But here?" I tap my chest, right over the heart. "Right here? I'm not so sure. I've seen people lose parents before, Doc, and it wasn't pretty. Don't think she'd be too thrilled to see me, actually."

And having Liara pissed off at me is someting I _really_ don't want. Fortunately, Shepard announced that we'd be heading back to the Citadel to report to the Council and reprovision the ship. We also have four prisoners to drop off. Speaking of the prisoners, I'm actually looking forward to seeing Miranda again. Never thought I'd say that about Cerberus's Ice Queen, but she's grown on me over the past few months...and I kind of miss her.

"An interesting conundrum," Chakwas agrees, nodding sagely. "But perhaps it would help if you explained...made her understand what drove her mother to do what she did. From what I hear, it was you who got the matriarch to stand down. Talk to her. I've found that in most cases...the words will find themselves. Either that, or you're in for a world of hurt."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Doc," I mutter wryly.

She pats me on the shoulder good-naturedly. "Of course. I'll be right on hand to patch you back up, too. You could always try alcohol, I hear it works wonders for soothing a ravaged soul. Or as a painkiller."

That gets a wry grin from me. "I don't think the Serrice Ice Brandy cure is for everyone, Doc. But thanks."

"Anytime, Lieutenant." She turns around and starts to walk away, but pauses in front of the med bay doors. "Oh, and Lieutenant? I'll be wanting to take a look at you regardless. Shepard tells me you took quite a hit down there."

Once Chakwas is back in the med bay, there's no more putting it off. A deep breath later, and I ring the chime on the door. It opens up almost immediately, and I step into a crowded workspace and living area. Huh...guess she got a little more organized after she became the Shadow Broker, because I don't recall her quarters on the SR-2 being this cluttered. There's data pads full of information laying around everywhere, artifacts, honest to god paper books...

It looks like Indiana Jones took up residence here, to be honest. Only thing that's missing is the fedora and bullwhip. Liara's sitting at her desk, looking over something on her terminal, and doesn't really look up when I enter. Hell, she practically ignores me until I'm standing right in front of her desk.

"Oh, Lieutenant Grayson. Was there something I could help you with?"

Huh...she doesn't _sound_ mad. Then again, Liara never really shows much emotion in her voice to begin with. "I, uh...I came to talk to you. About what happened on Noveria."

_That_ gets a reaction from her. Her eyes avert, looking down at her table, then back up at me. She takes a long, deep huff of a breath and then gestures for me to sit down. "What did you wish to say, Lieutenant?"

"I just wanted to say...I'm sorry for your loss. I wish...I don't really know what I wish." Slumping back in the chair, I'm starting to think that Chakwas probably had the right idea in getting smashingly drunk. "Your mother...she had her reasons, I think. I just wish it hadn't come to this, I guess is what I wanted to say. And...I'm sorry."

"You have nothing to be sorry about, Lieutenant. You did your duty."

"I _shot_ your _mother_." Although, right now, considering the fact that she's the calmer of us two, I'm starting to wonder why I'm really here. Am I here for her...or for me? I mean, I thought I'd gotten over the whole killing thing, but...oh, who am I kidding. There's no _getting over_ killing, not unless you're a sociopath, at least, but just the fact that it was someone's _mother_. A parent...it made me think that everyone I've ever shot at had a family. Had parents, or children, brothers, sisters.

"It was necessary." There's a little hesitation in her voice, though. I'm not sure if I imagined it, but I don't think Liara's as indifferent as it seems.

"Was it? Was it really?" I can't help but wonder. Saren could be argued with. Even Benezia...the fact that she was free of _Sovereign_'s indoctrination at the end makes me wonder if she could've been saved. If _Saren_ could be talked down, why not her? Why couldn't I have talked her down before having to shoot her? Hell, why did I even open my big mouth in the first place, I should've fucking let _Shepard_ do the talking. She's the one who's good at this.

Me? I'm just the funny little guy who's here on some cosmic joke played by the universe's ultimate prankster. If I'd said something different, or if I hadn't said anything...perhaps Shepard would've done better. But _no_, I had to idiotically stick my nose right into it because I thought I knew better.

Liara's leaning back now, too, staring up at the ceiling. "What do you want me to say, Lieutenant? That I blame you for her death? You want me to scream and rage and cry like a human?"

"In all honesty?" I tell her, "I don't know what I came here for. I don't know how close you two were, but losing a parent...it's never easy."

"Of course I grieve, Lieutenant. I can't _not_ grieve. But we asari..." She takes a deep, shuddering breath and that right there tells me that I'm either getting somewhere, or I'm about to get my ass kicked. "We asari are trained to control our emotions much more tightly than humans. Because if we don't...our biotics could run rampant. Those who cannot control themselves, well...it's not pretty."

"The Ardat-Yakshi."

Liara nods sharply. "How did you know about them?"

"Alliance intelligence isn't as incapable as the Council would have people think," I mutter wryly. And a little bit of codex knowledge from Mass Effect 2 helps, as well.

She laughs a little at that. "The turian military can be a little..."

"Uptight?" I finish for her with a chuckle, before the humor passes. "Look, I'm not expecting you to break out into tears. I just...I wanted to say I'm sorry, is all."

"Thank you, Lieutenant." For a moment, it seems like she's dismissed me with that, because she's gone still and silent. I'm about to get up when she continues, her voice trembling just a little bit. I almost miss it, but...hey, if you end up in the proverbial friend zone with all the women you know all the time, you get to recognize when they're starting to break. "I wish I knew why. I mean, we weren't ever very close, but, but this? Why would she do something like this? Allying herself with Saren? The geth? Resurrecting the rachni to enslave them?"

"I'm sure she had her reasons." Although that does sound hollow, even to me.

"_What_ reasons?" Liara's sudden angry outburst startles both of us, I think, especially with the biotic lightshow she's putting on. She takes a second to collect herself, and sighs. "You see why the asari keep their emotions under tight control, Lieutenant?"

"I'm starting to, I think..."

Our future prothean expert gives me a wry smile. "No matter how much I think about it, I can't figure out why she would do what she did. What could have driven her?" Then, she stares at me. "You said something to her, before she died. About promises made. Voices she heard. What did you tell her before she, uh, before she-"

"Before she tried to choke the living daylights out of me?" I rub my chin thoughtfully, wondering how much I should tell Liara, and how the hell I'm going to explain this mess to Miranda. I really lost my temper back there with Benezia, said things I shouldn't have, things that I shouldn't be knowing.

"Yeah." At least that gets a little smile from her.

Well...time to spin a story, I guess. Once upon a time..."Your mother got mixed up with Saren Arterius, you know that already. I don't know how much you know about what Saren wants to do, but you know about the Reapers, and that should tell you enough about what could happen if they return."

"I've read mother's work, yes. But that is about all we know about them, isn't it?" she asks curiously, and I realize that, once again, I've been made. Dammit, what is it with women around me that can read me like an open book?

How to handle this...hmm. Perhaps the Ben Kenobi approach would work best. The truth...from a certain point of view. "You know how your mother mentioned something called _Sovereign_?"

"So did the rachni queen," Liara notes.

"Yeah. We have reason to believe that, whatever _Sovereign_ is, it's tied to the Reapers. Saren's out there, somewhere, and as far as we can tell, _Sovereign_ is a Reaper artifact of some sort. Maybe something akin to the prothean beacons we've encountered, something that drove Saren to try and bring them back." Thinking about indoctrination really isn't any fun...especially because it makes me wonder what is going to happen at the end of Mass Effect 3. If Shepard's being indoctrinated...shit, I don't even want to think about it. "Something's wrong here. Maybe it's _Sovereign_, but if it's anything like a beacon, if it messes with your head...it's the only explanation we have for why Saren is doing what he's doing. That or he's gone borderline batshit insane."

"And my mother?"

"You haven't seen what happened on Eden Prime. I've just read the mission reports, but the geth and the Reaper tech that Saren left behind, it's not pretty. It's terrifying and gruesome and repulsive. They don't make any distinction, turians, humans, asari...they'll tear through anything in their way without rhyme or reason other than the destruction of sentient life. No one in their right mind would help them willingly." A little white lie there about my knowledge of Eden Prime. The longer I stay here, the harder it gets to hold it all in. There's been times I just wanted to sit down with Shepard or Miranda and just spill everything, give them every little detail I can remember about the Reapers in the hopes that it'll help stop them.

But then I always realize how crazy I'd sound. I'm incredibly lucky Miranda believes me as it is, and I'm not about to push my luck. I'm no good to anyone in a loony bin. So how do I explain to someone about indoctrination without actually mentioning it? "Sometimes...people just get so caught up in doing what they think is right, in trying to grasp the bigger picture, that they forget the small things. That the ends don't justify the means. If a prothean showed up right now and promised us a better galaxy if we did as we were told, say, if the Council forcibly pacified the Terminus systems, I'm sure there'd be some who'd be all for it."

"Sacrifice a few for the good of the many?"

"Something like that," I agree. Not to go all Spock and all, but that whole the good of the many outweighs the good of the few thing he was so fond of saying? I think it's bull. Not unless there's absolutely no alternative. "Imagine, if you will, doing something because you believed it to be the right thing at the time. Only to find out later that it was, in fact, a terrible mistake, and your only remaining hope is to go on, to forge through and pray to the Divine that it will have been worth it in the end. Because in your mind, there's no going back. So you do another thing, and another, and just hope that the nightmare will end one day."

"Sometimes, we lose our way," Liara mutters, more to herself than to me. "Who is this _he_ you spoke of when you talked to her? Not Saren, you meant someone else."

Damn, she picked up on that? "I have a feeling that this is bigger than just Saren and your mother, that this goes beyond the geth and rachni. Call it instinct, or premonition, or whatever you like."

"How do you know all this?"

A wry smile at that, and the perfect opening to get out of here. "Like I said, Alliance intelligence isn't as incompetent as you might think." I get up from the chair and head for the door, leaving her in thought.

"Lieutenant?"

"Hm?" I turn around, already in the open door.

"Thank you...for giving my mother peace."


	16. Chapter 16

**Author's** **Note**: Well, I'm back, and hopefully back to my regular update schedule. Seoul is a beautiful city :)

**Chapter Sixteen**

"How's your back?"

I looked over Chakwas's shoulder to see Shepard entering the med bay. The good doctor is currently prodding the bruise that's forming on my back where that commando's shockwave caught me in the spine to make sure there's no nerve damage. "Like a truck ran into it."

"Oh, the Lieutenant will be just fine," Chakwas adds, stepping away and nodding at me.

Shrugging back into my shirt, I hop off the examination bed and turn to face the Commander. "Somehow, I don't think you're here to pay me a courtesy visit, Commander."

"Not entirely, no," she admits as she watches Chakwas apply medi-gel to my back. "How long till he's back on his feet, Karin?"

"Oh, he should be fine by tomorrow morning. The gel will help dissipate the bruising, but there's no actual spinal damage. It'll be uncomfortable to lie on for a couple of hours, but that's about the extent of it. He was lucky."

Shepard nods and smiles at the doctor. "Good. Could you give us a minute, please, then?"

"Of course, Commander." Accomodating as ever - at least when it comes to Shepard - Chakwas clears up her desk and leaves the med bay. Leaving me leaning against the examination table and Shepard, who's plopping down into the seat at Chakwas's desk, fumbling underneath it for something.

"Come on, have a seat, Grayson," she says as she produces a bottle of Serrice Ice Brandy and two shot glasses. As I hesitantly take the chair across from her, she clinks one of the glasses down in front of either of us. "Let's play a little game."

"I'm...not sure I want to know what this game involves, Commander."

"Oh, loosen up, Grayson. It's not like we're playing Truth or Dare."

"I don't drink liqour, Commander." _At least, I didn't use to till I met you and Chakwas_, I amend silently.

"Well, you're going to start now. That's an order. Besides, you had no trouble drinking with Chakwas last time you were in here." Shepard fills both glasses and picks up hers, looking at me expectantly.

No way around it, I guess, I slowly take mine and clink it to hers. "Cheers," I mutter, before downing the shot. It...tastes just as I remember it tasting. Bitter, and sharp, and warm. Like liquid fire pouring down your throat. "So, what's the occasion?"

Shepard refills both our glasses before replying. "I was hoping to talk to you, Patrick."

_That_ gets my attention. "You never call me by my first name, Commander."

"That's because this is off the record." She raises her glass again, and I'm flashing back to the last time I got drunk with Chakwas.

"Off the record, huh?" Down goes the next shot. "What's the occasion for the hush-hush?"

"You."

"Me?" I almost laugh at that. "All right, I'll play ball, Commander. What'd you want to talk to me about that you don't want Big Brother knowing about?"

"First of all," she says, refilling the glasses yet again - is staying on this ship going to turn me into an alcoholic? "It's Jane. No Shepard, no Commander, and no Lieutenant. Just Jane and Patrick. How about that?"

I just shrug and clink my glass to hers. "Sure, whatever you want."

"I always get what I want." Shepard chuckles a bit at the unintended innuendo, and the two of us drink for a while in companionable silence. I'm starting to wonder if Shepard just wanted a drinking buddy, after all, when she speaks again.

"Who are you really?"

Huh...guess she just wanted to get enough alcohol into, well, either me or herself. Hell if I know. So let's play the stupid drunk. "I have no idea what you're talking about, Jane." Her name feels unfamiliar to me. Like Chakwas, I prefer to call her Commander, or Shepard.

"Oh, I know you do. And you know I know that you know." She looks down at her glass for a moment, cross-eyed, and I have to admit it looks kind of funny. And cute.

"That just made no sense at all."

"Oh, you get the damn idea."

Yes, I do, but I'm going to drag this out as long as I can, because the more I can get Shepard occupied with little stuff, like being mad at me for being evasive, the less I'll end up having to tell her. "Why don't you tell me what you think, first?"

Shepard looks at me for a moment, then shrugs, as if to say _fine, if you want to play that game_. "I think you're more than an ASO operative. You know things, and these sudden insights you have...there's things you haven't told me, and I respect that. But dammit, I need to know mission critical stuff. Things that could make the difference between success and failure of our mission, between life and death for my team."

"And how..." my words start slurring as the alcohol starts affecting me - hey, I'm a bit of a lightweight, so sue me - "did you reach this conclusion, Jane?"

"It's all those hints you keep dropping. I swear, you're probably the worst intelligence operative at keeping your mouth shut I've ever met."

Hmm, I think she actually has a point there. Might've something to do with the fact that I'm not actually an intelligence operative. So I've never been really good at thinking on my feet when shit goes down. I prefer planning things out - not an easy thing to do in combat.

"And if you want to stay aboard my ship, you'll either answer my questions without beating around the bush, or you can get your ass off when we get back to the Citadel."

I drop my glass onto Chakwas's desk and just stare down into it for a moment. "All right," I tell her with a sigh, "hit me."

Shepard obliges and refills my glass and hers. "A question per shot, until you pass out. Sound fair?"

"And you'll respect my privacy, as long as it doesn't endanger our mission?"

"As long as it doesn't endanger the mission or my team," she agrees.

Ah, what the hell. I raise my glass to her and toss it back. "Go ahead. Number one."

"What's your name?"

At least she's starting simple. "Patrick Grayson, at your service."

"All right, I'll buy that." Shepard pours another round.

I pick up my glass, but before I drink it, I look over at her. "Do I get to ask questions in return?"

"As long as they don't go over your security clearance, sure," Shepard shrugs. "Of course, since I don't _know_ what your actual clearance is, that may be a bit tricky to figure out."

"All right, then. Uh...what's your favorite color?" I could slap myself. I really could, because _I_ can't believe that _that_ was the best I could come up with.

Shepard seems to share the sentiment, because she chortles in amusement. "Really, Pat? _That's_ the question you want to ask me off the record?"

"Not...really, no, I just couldn't think of it for a moment there." I shrug and down my shot. "Next?"

"Hm." She actually has to think a little about that. Makes sense, in a weird sort of way I guess she doesn't want to spook me by jumping into the deep questions. Or maybe I'm reading too much into this and she just is going through her list of shit she _does_ want to ask. Or maybe she's trying to calculate how many questions there's alcohol in the bottle for. "Well then...what do you know about the Reapers?"

"Straight to the big stuff, eh?" I play with the empty shotglass for a bit. "The Reapers, huh? Giant ancient space-assholes, if you ask me. Wiped out the protheans. I mean, who the hell does that? Go around, randomly wiping out civilizations? They got this nasty thing they do to you where they kind of get into your head and don't let go till you do what they want you to. Nasty piece of work, that, because you don't realize what you're doing. Or they're doing. Or however the hell it works out. Just...bad shit. And then there's the shit they did on Eden Prime."

"You think Saren's..._indoctrinated_?" she asks. Huh. Guess she's been talking to Liara.

I hold out my glass to her. "No fair. Gimme something to drink first, then ask a question."

Shepard obliges with a smirk and we clink our glasses together again. "So?" she prods.

"Probably. Maybe. Either that or he's batshit insane." I shrug. "You been talking to our houseguests?"

The Commander nods. "Without the matriarch's influence or orders they spilled rather easily on certain things. Seems you were close with your hunch that Saren has a ship or station out there. And we've got a name to go with it."

"_Sovereign_." Another shot goes down, and we sit around quietly for a moment. "You gonna ask me a question, or what?" I finally ask her.

"Gotta let a girl go at her own pace, Mister. How did you know about the rachni?"

Oh, a tricky one. "Lucky guess. Peak 15 was a genetics research facility operated by Binary Helix studying recombinant DNA of extinct species. I pulled up some of their specifics from that data dump in their VI core. When we ran into the rachni, it was a logical conclusion." My answers are definitely coming slower now, and I'm starting to realize what she's doing. With the alcohol in my system it's getting harder to think up excuses and make up stories, and generally the first thing that comes out of your mouth is the truth.

"Then how did you know they were friendly?"

Before I can even say anything, she leans over and pours the drinks. I toss mine back before replying. "Considering how many of them there were, it was unlikely we could've shot our way out. They could've just bumrushed us with sheer numbers, and that would've been that. I had a bit of a feeling they were herding us somewhere when we stopped actually coming in contact with them."

"Interesting."

"What is?"

"You. You're not a soldier. I can see it. Trust me, if you've been a soldier as long as I have, you notice these things. I'd wager you didn't even go through basic. But you do know how to use those weapons of yours, though I find your lack of proficiency in most weapons systems confusing." Shepard pours another round.

Down it goes. "There a question in there, somewhere?"

"Yeah. How is it that someone who so obviously is not fully trained has access to such sensitive information? Whose agency do you work for? Turian military? The asari? STG?"

"Alliance Spec Ops."

"But your service record isn't the whole story, is it."

It's not a question, but I throw back a shot, anyway. "You already seem to have the answer to that, Jane." A pseudo-answer for a pseudo-question.

She nods sagely. And while I'm sure she can probably drink me under the table with ease, all the alcohol we've downed so far is starting to affect even her. Slightly. "You're a civilian."

"Is that a question?"

"Hmm...statement. Haven't had a drink yet." A drink later, she mournfully looks at the bottle, which is nearing empty. "But feel free to answer it, anyway."

"All right. Let's just say I'm a bad shot with anything but a semi-automatic weapon. I've got intelligence and combat training. Probably not what you consider standard training, but considering the circumstances with the Reapers...my training officer made an exception and expedited the process. And yes, I used to be a civilian. Not all of us are career military, you know." Once again, the truth, from a certain point of view.

God, I'm turning into freaking Ben Kenobi. Not that that's a good thing.

"Leaving your prior history alone for now, then." She shakes the bottle, and empties it into both our glasses, tilting it until the last drop comes out. "Only one last one," she says, almost mournfully.

She lifts her glass up and turns it over in her hands, as if contemplating what to make of her last question. Finally, she downs it, ignoring the fact that I haven't touched mine, and looks at me. "I'll be honest here. I don't know if I can trust you. Never been fond of intelligence types, all that cloak and dagger shit. Coupled with all the things you seem to know, you may as well be an enemy agent."

"Understandable. Although I'm hoping that we can work on that, Jane, because I _really_ don't want you as my enemy. You scare me more than the damn Reapers." She really does. Trust me, _Sovereign_, _Harbinger_, and their siblings? They got _nothing_ on an angry, pyromaniac vanguard Shepard.

Shepard chuckles lightly and runs her finger around the rim of her empty glass. "So, my last question of the night...who are you, Patrick Grayson? Spy? Operative? Soldier? Sleeper agent?"

I hum the tune of the old rhyme _Tinker, Tailor_ for a moment as _Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy_ comes to mind. It's been a while since I've read le Carré. George Smiley I'm not, but the titular phrase seems oddly appropriate here. "Engineer by choice, soldier by circumstance, and spy by reluctant association to my boss."

"Well, you certainly can talk like a spy when you don't want to give a direct answer," Shepard replies with a reluctant smile. "I'm guessing I'll have to let it go, then, because we're all out for tonight."

As much as I don't want to be questioned too much, I can't help but wonder what her impression of me is. Does she trust me? I doubt it, not fully, anyway. Conditionally, maybe. And a part of me feels kind of sorry for her, I guess, for not getting her answers. Never figured I'd feel guilty for hiding shit from Shepard and Miranda, but I kinda do, even though I know no one's gonna believe a word of my complete story. I _want_ Shepard and Miranda to trust me, I _need_ them to trust me. I just hope I can balance it well enough not to look like an enemy or a complete maniac.

So I slide my full glass over to her. "Go ahead, have one on me. I wasn't feeling much like drinking tonight, anyway."

Shepard just looks at me, and, following my curt nod, downs it easily and sets down the glass. "So, why'd you decide to join SpecOps?"

"A good question," I reply, nodding sagely. Man, I can't stop nodding...neck muscles...won't...respond. Ah, there we go. "I told you I'm an engineer, right?"

"Yeah. Judging from your educational records, if they're to be believed and aren't a fabrication of Special Operations, a pretty good one, too. Space propulsion systems. Adam's been pretty impressed with your work, so it probably isn't all a lie."

"Has he?" That's surprising, actually, considering how little I come in contact with him. I'm mostly working during Tali's shift these days. "You know, I had it all planned out. Finish school, join some company, and build something. Something good. Maybe meet the right girl along the way, you know, get married, settle down. Have a life." I'm not sure how I'm going to answer that, because, to be honest, I'm not sure how well Miranda's cover story is going to hold up. Not that she didn't do a great job at it, I'm just not that good an actor.

Shepard grins slightly at that. "Sounds like a plan. A little dull, but then I'm a military brat." So far, so good.

"Yeah, well," I tell her, "Dull is fine with me. Mostly. But then...you know, I hadn't even sent in my job applications yet when this lady comes into my lab one day and offers me a chance to work on the next-gen Tantalus drive core. Like, _me_, you know? Stupidly, I didn't think to check into it any further, and the next thing I know, I'm sequestered away studying the specs for the _Normandy_'s power plant."

"I was under the impression that the _Normandy_'s tech was top-secret clearance only."

"Oh, believe me, it is. The people I ended up working for - they're scary good at getting clearance. Trust me," I poke at the table for emphasis, "if there's information out there they want, they'll get it."

"Typical intel."

"Pretty much. But yeah, so naturally, y'know, I was wondering, hey, why're we developing frigates with oversized powerplants that can power-" I almost said _Thanix cannons_, but they haven't been invented yet. "Well, that can power some really big-ass guns. Y'know, kind of reminds me of slapping a twelve-cylinder turbo into a tiny Camry." I can see the reference is going over her head, but I forge on anyway.

"So, what'd they say?"

"They said there's something big and scary coming and they wanted to be ready for it."

"The Reapers. You said your training officer was the only one who believed in their existence."

"Yup. She's the head of that particular project. But you didn't hear that from me, got it?"

Shepard grins. "My lips are sealed."

"Good. Good. Uhm, anyway, stupid me couldn't leave well enough alone...so I kept asking questions. Found out that she suspected it'd be galaxy-altering shit going down, and wanted humanity to be ready to step up to the plate, you know." And now, I'm totally ad-libbing. Hell, I hope Miranda isn't going to be too upset with me.

"Yeah, you strike me as the kind of guy who never leaves well enough alone."

"Thanks...I think. Anyway, at one point she said, and I quote, _screw it, you're coming with me, because with everything you know now, your ass belongs to me_. And I figured, hell, if the shitstorm that's coming is half as bad as she expects it to be, I gotta help out any way I can, you know."

"Makes sense. But why not stay on the development team?"

"Because that got cancelled for lack of funding, at least till we bring them proof. Turns out that flying out the _Normandy_ on her shakedown, whatever you did on Eden Prime, was good enough to convince the brass they didn't need the Mark Two."

"You think we will?"

I look at Shepard and just smile lopsidedly, pulling the specs of the SR-2 off the top of my head. "The Mark Two had a Tantalus core with double the power output, primary weapons systems capable of cutting a turian cruiser in half in a single shot, and armor and kinetic shielding enough to fly through a shitstorm of a firefight and come out without so much as a dent on her hull. And I think we'll need every single bit of it."

Shepard's silent after that for a long time. I don't know if it's because she's thinking, or because she has nothing to say, but I'm perfectly content to just sit here in my alcohol-induced haze and doze away. I probably said way too much, but at least I can blame the alcohol. And if Shepard's contemplative expression is any indication, then I don't think I've done too badly in the not-alienating-her category.

"So," she begins suddenly, "what's with you and Ashley?"

"Jane, this is one where I can honestly say I have no freaking clue," I tell her with a chuckle that, probably thanks to the alcohol and the absurdity of the situation, devolves into full-blown laughter. I mean, hey, I'm sitting here with Shepard and we're getting drunk while she's questioning my loyalty, there's no logical reason for my mirth.

"Oh, come on. You must've done _something_ to her."

"I swear, I haven't done anything to her. Ever. I barely exchanged two words with her since coming aboard."

Shepard hums for a moment, whether in response to me, or in enjoyment of the alcohol, I don't really know. Finally, just as I'm about to excuse myself for the night - the alcohol's _really_ starting to get to me now - the Commander looks up, her expression completely sober, devoid of any of the playfulness that was present during our drinking game.

"I talked to Liara. She told me that she had a few words with the matriarch before she died. That she and Saren were looking for the Mu Relay, that it would lead to the conduit, but she had been unsuccessful at extracting its location from the rachni queen. According to the data you recovered, she was about to be transported over to a holding facility at Rift Station shortly after we arrived for more invasive...interrogation, if such a term applies."

Well, this is different from the game. I'd begun to wonder how we'd get a hold of the information Benezia relays to the player in the game when she just...well, just died like that. In fact, I was about to go and prepare a whole speech to Miranda about the importance of using Cerberus resources to locate the Mu Relay. "She say anything interesting?" I ask. Although, if Benezia doesn't know its location...that just might have bought us some time.

"Oh, yes." Shepard shakes the empty bottle of Serrice Ice Brandy. "Looks like I owe Karin another bottle. We need to find that relay before Saren does, and unfortunately, we aren't any closer than he is."

_You have freed our children. Hear our song in parting._ There's that voice again. I shake my head to clear it, and look over at Shepard. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

Guess that answers my question. Shit, am I starting to hear voices now? "Nevermind, probably just too much to drink."

"Probably," Shepard agrees, but she seems a little tentative about it. "Look, I'll make this clear, Grayson. I'm keeping my eye on you. But you've been useful so far, and I think you're working for the right side. I just hope that it doesn't turn out I was wrong, because you wouldn't like the consequences."

And with that, she gets up and stalks out of the med bay, leaving me to my thoughts. But just inside the door, she pauses. "Oh, and it's green."

"What?"

"Your question."

By the time my alcohol-addled brain has caught up, she's gone already. And it takes another two minutes before I finally realize what she was talking about. Green. Heh. Never would've figured her for that.

And then I'm laughing like a maniac.

T

It's only been two weeks since I've set foot onboard the _Normandy_, but between Therum and Noveria, it seems like it was much, much longer. So by the time the ship has docked at the Citadel, and Shepard has declared a two-day liberty for the crew while the ship is being resupplied and she hob-nobs with the bigwigs, almost everyone is ready to get off the ship.

Almost everyone. Turns out that, even as I'm waiting for the airlock doors to cycle with my duffel bag over my shoulder, Joker's still sitting in the cockpit, staring out at the traffic zipping past between the Citadel's arms. I pause as a couple of the crewmen walk past me, then step out of the way and into the cockpit.

"We're on shore leave, Moreau. I'm sure there's a bar or three out there with drinks with your name on them."

Joker just waves me off over his shoulder. "Yeah, yeah, I'll be off in a bit. Just enjoying the view right now."

He's right, in a way. The sight from the _Normandy_'s cockpit is breathtaking. We're docked inside one of the Citadel's arms, with it half-opened, so we can look "up" and see the other wards all around us. The presidium ring is dead ahead, and all around us glitters a proverbial microcosm worth of lights in itself, set against the backdrop of stars. A galaxy within a galaxy, so to speak. "It's something else," I agree easily.

"So, Grayson..." Joker cranes his neck to look at me over his chair. "How exactly _did_ you know about my collection?"

"That's for me to know and you to...not know, Moreau." I barely manage to suppress a chuckle at the thought of what Shepard would say - or will say - when she gets him one of those Fornax magazines. I think that was in Mass Effect 2, over on Omega.

"No, seriously, tell me. Man, not even the Commander knows about it, and she picks me up the-" Joker clams up as he realizes what he almost said.

"The subscription packages for you," I finish for him with a grin. "What can I say? Intel has its perks."

"You're an evil, evil man, Grayson."

"And you look like you're in sore need of a drink. Let me buy you one."

He looks at me a little suspiciously - warranted, I suppose, because I haven't exactly spent a lot of time up here. "Why the sudden invitation?"

"Because I owe you. Two, in fact, for bailing my ass out on Therum."

"Eh, sure, why not. It _was_ a brilliant piece of flying back there, if I do say so myself."

I clap him on the shoulder and step back so he can get out. "That's the spirit."

Five minutes later, Joker and me are leaving the gangway to the ship as the last ones out, and the moment I step out into the Citadel proper, I know I'm in for it. Because standing there, right in front of me, her arms crossed and her right foot tapping impatiently, is Miranda.

"Heh, looks like you're going to be in trouble, Grayson. Who's she? Wife? Fiancee? Girlfriend?" Joker smirks as he hobbles down next to me. "You certainly got taste."

I can't really help it, I duck my head to hide the sudden flush his comment brought on. Not that I disagree, Miranda looks absolutely stunning in an Alliance uniform - her skin-tight catsuits from Mass Effect 2 aside, I never really was fond of that particular look, at least not when compared to a nice, tailored and fitted outfit. But the notion of me and her in a relationship? Preposterous. Besides, I _never_ get the girl. "My boss," I mutter as I head over to her, with the _Normandy_'s pilot right behind me.

"Some boss. Man, if I wasn't working for Shepard, I'd _definitely_ be wanting to work there. Perks, indeed. You lucky dog, Grayson."

"Yeah, well, you're working for Shepard, so you got nothing to complain about," I mutter back.

But it seems like Miranda's heard me, anyway. "You saying I'm not as attractive as the _Normandy_'s skipper, Lieutenant?" I can tell she's teasing by the way she's cocking her hip and staring me down. Trying to make me uncomfortable, definitely, but in good humor. I hope.

"Not at all, ma'am," I reply, throwing her a quick salute for Joker's benefit. "Just saying that Mr. Moreau here probably couldn't handle working under you." Two can play that innuendo game, Mira.

She makes a show of eyeing Joker up and down for a bit, then returns to me. "Perhaps, although I'm sure he does have his redeeming qualities, all his quirks notwithstanding. There's a reason Captain Anderson picked him for the job, I'm sure."

"Hey, there's plenty of them!"

"Aside from your crass and abrasive personality, you mean?" I poke at Joker. "Not to mention your obnoxious and yet surprisingly funny jokes?"

"Fine, fine, I can see I'm a third wheel here. Make fun of the cripple, will ya?" Joker doesn't take any offense at our banter, but he doesn't look all that happy to leave, either. I'm guessing he was actually sort of looking forward to having a drink with someone else. Understandable, I'm kind of like that, a bit of a loner. He's got it harder, I imagine, with his condition and that sarcasm he throws up in front of people.

But I _really_ need to talk to Miranda. I didn't get much of a chance to tell her anything other than the basic _make sure you get one of Shepard's prisoners_ kind of missive after Noveria. I'll make it up to Joker though, I promise to myself. And right then, a temporary solution to this comes ambling down the ramp. I wave him over. "Hey, Alenko!"

The Staff Lieutenant waves back and comes over, stopping to salute and halting in a parade rest when he sees Miranda's rank bars. "Ma'am," he greets her. "What's up, Grayson?"

"Moreau here is in _dire_ need of a drinking buddy, since I have to bow out of it for tonight, at least," I clue him in. "You know, someone to protect the ladies from his rampant charm and shining personality."

"And carry him back off his drunk ass, afterwards?" Alenko throws in with a grin.

"Hey, what is this, pick on the cripple day? I don't have to take this, you know," Joker protests in mock outrage.

Striking a contemplative pose - you know, the classic _thinker_ thing, hand on chin and all that, stroking a non-existing beard - I pretend to muse that over for a bit. "Well, it could be worse. Try taking _Tali_ to a bar. Quarians are no fun in bars, let me tell you."

That actually gets a raised and curious eyebrow from Joker, Kaidan, _and_ Miranda. And it's Miranda who poses the question for all three of them. "And you would know that...how, Lieutenant?"

"Yeah, how _do_ they even drink at bars?" Joker asks.

Once again, I strike a sage countenance as I reply evenly: "Very, very carefully. Through an emergency induction port."

"Sounds like a barrel of fun," Joker deadpans. "Well, have fun you two, I'm going to get drunk and enjoy myself before Shepard runs us across the galaxy again."

The three of us watch as he limps off, then Kaidan excuses himself, as well. "I better keep an eye on him," he says, and heads in after Joker.

And that leaves just me and Miranda. She looks at me for a second, then turns and heads for the elevator. "Coming, Lieutenant?"

She doesn't say a word during our elevator ride, or our trip to her skycar. She doesn't say anything till we're back in her safehouse, actually. Once inside, she drops her SpecOps persona and turns back to me, her native accent showing back through. "How was your time aboard the _Normandy_? Well spent, I hope?"

"You've read the reports," I shrug. "A bit of running around, a bit of blowing things up, with a dash of mystery and galactic intrigue."

"Sounds like you've been busy. According to Shepard's logs, you've actually been an asset in the field, even if she doesn't fully trust you. As per your recommendation, I've arranged transfer of one of the asari prisoners to a secure Cerberus facility for questioning." Miranda sheds the uniform jacket and sits down at her desk, gesturing for me to do the same.

"I doubt you'll get much out of her. Benezia was looking for the location of the Mu Relay. Wherever it leads, it's got to be important, because they didn't resurrect the rachni for nothing." My duffel lands next to my feet with a light thud - not that there's much in there, really, just a couple of changes of clothes, my bathroom stuff, and my pistol kit. That Karpov Tali modified for me? Yeah, there's no way I'm _not_ taking it apart to see what makes it tick.

Of course, there's no way I'm telling her that the Mu Relay actually leads to an ancient prothean world upon which we will find the remnant of a working prothean VI which then directs us to the Conduit, which will teleport us to the Citadel, where we'll have to rush against time to stop Saren and _Sovereign_ from activating the giant mass relay that is the Citadel. And...uh...yeah.

"The Mu Relay? That's been a legend longer than humans have been in space. It was supposedly lost during the Rachni Wars." Miranda looks contemplative for a bit. "I'll talk to the Illusive Man. I'm sure we can divert some resources towards locating it. If it can be found, we'll find it."

"Good, because Saren seems to think the Conduit is wherever the Mu Relay is. Even if that isn't the case, he's looking for it something fierce, so if we find the relay..."

"We find Saren. Good thinking."

Miranda's quiet for a little bit, apparently immersed in her datapad, before looking back up at me. "How are you doing?"

"Hm? What do you mean?" It's not that I don't know what to say, but, well...I don't know what she's asking. She's never really shown much concern before, at least not openly, not until right before I left on the _Normandy_, and our communictations while I was aboard were always brief, concise, and utterly factual.

"Your mission reports. Can't have been easy being around Shepard and fighting. Therum and Noveria seemed like rather inhospitable places."

That's putting it mildly. "I'm fine. Actually, the thing that scares me more is that I think I'm actually getting used to all those near-death experiences." I chuckle a little and grin at her to set her at ease. "Hell, by now, if I _didn't_ end up flat on my back and knocked on my ass during a mission and needed to be saved, I'd reckon something is seriously wrong with the universe."

It manages to put a small smile on her face. "I read that, actually. You seem to be developing into quite the damsel in distress out there."

"What can I say? I'm a sucker for having beautiful women come to my rescue." Right after that leaves my mouth, my jaw drops open and my eyes widen. Oh, shit. I did _not_ just say that. Looking at Miranda's expression, though, I think I just did. Oh, fuuuuck. I'm really in for it now, me and my big mouth. Why do I always speak before thinking?

A second later, Miranda just chuckles and shakes her head in amusement, and I let out a sigh of relief I didn't know I was holding in. Phew. Crisis averted. For now. "Well, if you insist," she says, "All joking aside, though, I trust you're holding up well?"

"As well as can be, I suppose. I mean, it's not gotten any easier, but it's only going to get worse from here. A _lot_ worse." Even if we stop Saren, but she doesn't know that...I'll have to tell her eventually, but not now. One thing at a time. Stop Saren first, then worry about the Collectors.

"With any luck, we'll stop Saren before it comes to that."

And I really don't have the heart to tell her right now that Saren is just the beginning. So I just shrug and grin and nod. "Yeah, I guess."

"Well, it looks like you've been busy. Why don't you go get cleaned up and get some rest. I need to speak with the Illusive Man about a few things, and I have no doubt that he wants to debrief you in person." Miranda dismisses me with a tilt of her head.

Grabbing my duffel, I head past her to my old room. But before I go..."Miranda?"

"Yes?"

"It's good to see you again."

She looks up, and a tiny smile graces her lips. "It's nice to see you're in one piece after all that. I'm sure you'll have quite the story to tell when this is over."


	17. Chapter 17

**Author's Note: **Earlyupdate, I know, but my muse had my hands flying over my keyboard, so I decided to go ahead and put one up early. And yes, there'll be another one coming on Wednesday, if all goes right. Enjoy!

**Chapter Seventeen**

The tech lab is still the way I left it. Since I'm still running on ship-time, it's barely afternoon for me, and there's no jetlag, nothing like flying on airplanes at all, so I'm feeling fresh and wide awake after a quick shower and dropping off my stuff in the room that Miranda kept for me. So, off to the tech lab it is to see just _what_ Tali did to my gun. Not that I'm complaining, but I like knowing how to take apart and maintain my stuff, and this gun looks nothing like the stock variant anymore.

And that's how the Karpov ended up in disassembled pieces on the table in front of me. You know how engineers and mechanics always joke about having a bucket of parts leftover after maintenance? Yeah, I'm looking at a bucket of extra parts right now. The main one is an extra, secondary heatsink on the far side of the gun where the maintenance cover used to be. The ammo block is smaller, the barrel's larger, I'm guessing that she did something to the propulsive element in there, too, because it's carving huge chunks out of the ammo block now.

That makes me wonder how long the power cell is going to last. That's never been mentioned in Mass Effect, the limiting factor was always how much heat the weapon could dissipate, not how much ammo or power it had.

"The Illusive Man wants to talk to you."

Shit, I was so engrossed in looking at the parts and figuring out what goes where that I didn't even hear Miranda enter. That just begs the question, how the _hell_ does Tali know what goes where in this jumble of parts with no manual? Mechanical genius, indeed.

"Now?" I ask, wiping my hands off on a rag.

"Now," she confirms.

All right, then. As I get up from the work bench and follow her into her office, there's only one thought going through my mind. I'm about to come face to face with Tim, the original illusive asshole. It's showtime.

The man himself resolves from pixels on the quantum entanglement communicator pad sitting in his chair and smoking his obligatory cigarette in his personal office-slash-throne room aboard Cronos Station and looking all self-important like the mofo he is. And that _haircut_, what is this, the sixties? Well, I should probably clarify, the _nineteen_-sixties. The huge display behind him that covers the wall of his room shows a nebula in all its spectacular colors, while the screens directly behind his desk are blank right now and show the Cerberus logo.

"Ah, so you are the enigmatic Mister Grayson who has Operative Lawson so fascinated. We finally meet," he drawls out in that hoarse voice of his.

Seriously, _we finally meet_? Why does _every_ villain and villain-wannabe always say that? I bite back a snarky comment - not easy, considering the fact that I know what he's going to do in a few years' time - and just nod. "'sup."

"I have devoted considerable resources to training you and planting you aboard the _Normandy_. Operative Lawson seems convinced you will be a useful asset there. I would like to make my own appraisal of the situation." Tim looks over at Miranda. "Tell me, Operative Lawson, why this young gentleman has captured your interest."

Miranda doesn't even hesitate in her reply. "He has information I believe is vital to the survival of the human race, and the best place for him to put it to use is aboard the _Normandy_."

"And you have not extracted this information from him to allow our own operatives to act on it why?"

"He was being perfectly cooperative. I saw no reason to employ invasive interrogation."

"And you have verified his information?"

"Yes, sir. It all checked out. His after-action reports from the _Normandy_'s deployment have also been very encouraging. The _Normandy _has managed to disrupt our renegade spectre's operations in two sectors so far, and we have uncovered vital information that should allow us to stop him for good." Miranda glances over at me. "I have faith that this operation will work out."

"Do you, now?" Tim steeples his hands in that iconic evil Ikari-Gendo-pose from _Evangelion_. Just another way in which he's a complete and utter d-bag.

"Yes, sir."

"Even though he has not provided you with the entirety of his intelligence?"

"Yes, sir."

"Interesting."

"Sir?"

"You are dismissed, Operative Lawson. I would like to conduct my debriefing of our newest asset in private."

Miranda, thankfully, stands her ground. That's probably a good thing because, well, I'm not exactly scared of Tim, but I'd probably say something I _really_ don't want to say if left alone with the guy. I've had a few choice words saved up for him ever since the last half of Mass Effect 3 that are not fit for polite company. "Sir, with all due respect, I would prefer to be present for his first debriefing."

Tim just puts out his cigarette and lights a new one. "Are you saying your asset can't handle a debrief by himself, Operative Lawson?"

"No, sir, but-"

On second thought, perhaps this is my chance to let him have it between the eyes and make sure he's ready to fund Miranda's Lazarus Project and the SR-2 a little ahead of schedule. Unconditional support and all that. Got to play my cards just right, though, or I'll end up on his most wanted list.

I reach out and touch her shoulder. "It's all right, Miranda. I can handle it." If his arrogant, obnoxious controlling ass wants me alone, then I'll have words with him alone. Trust me...Tim doesn't scare me. Not when pitted against all the other shit that's about to come down on our heads.

She looks over at me and holds my eye for a moment as if to make sure I'm sure. I give her a tiny nod, and she turns and stalks out of the room, leaving me looking after her, even after the door's closed behind her departure. It gives me a chance to give Timmy boy a piece of my mind, too, should things come to that, because if I absolutely _have_ to, I'm sure I can put the fear of God into him just with all the shit I know about his little operations. I could bring down the entire damn Arcturus fleet on his head without warning if I had to. The beauty of knowing exactly where he's at...

So I lean against the wall and cross my arms casually, returning my attention to him. One self-assured cocky take-no-bullshit asshole persona coming right up. "So, you're Miranda's boss, huh? You know, I've always wondered, what kind of person calls themselves The Illusive Man? I mean, it'll just confuse the heck of the majority of the people, and those who actually know their vocab will be rather offended at the implication. Besides, does that make _The_ your first name?"

"I can already tell you're going to be difficult."

"Oh, you have _no _idea."

"Then enlighten me why Cerberus should continue to support you instead of interrogating you for the information you have, and then disposing of your used up husk like a piece of garbage."

"I suppose _out of the goodness of your black, corrupted heart_, is out of the question as an answer?" I reply cheekily, never budging. "Because ultimately, you and I have the same goal, for now. Ensure that humanity survives when the shit hits the fan with the Reapers. Look at it this way. You have someone aboard the Alliance's newest, most advanced stealth recon frigate. Someone close to the first human spectre, who, believe it or not, is going to be right in the thick of it. And considering what's coming, I don't think you're in any position to turn down any help."

Tim looks like he's mulling that over for a second. He just drags on his cigarette and has that impassive poker face of his on. "You seem to underestimate the reach of Cerberus's resources. You are easily replaceable. Your position aboard the _Normandy_ is not invaluable."

"No, perhaps not," I concede, especially not with the relative ease with which Cerberus managed to fake the paperwork to get me aboard a top-secret frigate. "But the Alliance is going to come cracking down on you - already is, by my reckoning - and as much as I can help you and the Alliance fight the Reapers, I can also make it that much easier for the Alliance to come down on _you_."

"Are you threatening me, Mr. Grayson? Because that is a very dangerous proposition."

"Take it however you want. But here's the thing. Miranda trusts me. Shepard trusts me." _Somewhat_, I amend silently. "It all comes down to whether you believe that I'm holding the cards I claim to, or whether I'm bluffing. If I'm bluffing, you lose nothing, because as Miranda will tell you, I'm an asset aboard a ship she wanted to get one on, anyway. But if I'm not..."

Take _that_, you slimy little snake.

"If I'm not," I continue easily, "then you risk having your entire organization crumble as Alliance warships blast everything to hell. And I can just as easily use my knowledge from my post aboard the _Normandy_. I don't _need_ Cerberus right now."

Okay, that last one is a total bluff, because, yes, I _will_ need Cerberus in the coming years. But I can't afford to let Tim know that. He needs to know that I can and will cut ties with them and bring a heaping load of crap down on his head if he tries to mess with me. Got to stand firm in front of the illusive asshole. Make a point.

Tim, for his part, puts out his cigarette and leans back in his chair. "That is a very dangerous game you're playing, Mr. Grayson. Very well, I will play along, for now. But make no mistake, when your usefulness has come to an end...our business relationship _will_ terminate. Violently."

Good to know, not that I didn't already expect it. I'll just have to be quicker on the draw. "That's fine with me, I'll worry about it when the time comes. Right now I've got bigger fish to fry. We can continue this pissing contest all you want, but I've got a rogue spectre to catch, Reapers to kill, and all that shit. So either we get on with it, or you can sit back there in your chair looking all _bishounen_ while I get some actual work done."

It's not hard to figure out just _how_ to provoke someone like him. He's a classic evil mastermind - arrogant, self-assured, brilliant for sure, but also overly confident in his plans and contingencies. Letting him know that no, he's not important and that I'm not considering him a threat worthy of attention right now has to sting. Just the dismissal of everything he's done to build up Cerberus could be quite the blow to his ego.

Or it could make me seem like a complete and utter lunatic. Once again, balancing act. But it's a lot easier to do when I _know_ that, at least in the short term, I do hold the cards. I know his plans for the short term, I know where he's going to be, where Cerberus operations are, where his headquarters is, so if I need to, I can cripple him. It's going to hurt me in the long run, but it's going to hurt _him_ more than me. Maybe I should nudge Shepard to raid a few Cerberus facilities. Just to get the point across.

Then there's the fact that I'm subverting his underlings. I'm just hoping that when the time comes, I can convince Miranda to side with me...because I _know_ Tim's going to be an idiot this time around, too, and try and make a power grab for the Reapers. How'd Jack O'Neill say it again? _Daniel, you're corrupting my people with your morals!_ Ah, good old Richard Dean Anderson. Now _MacGyuver _would've been perfect for this. Or Colonel Jack O'Neill. I can just seem him making an anti-Reaper thingamabob out of duct tape and bubblegum and shoelaces.

"Very well, then," Tim says, turning my attention back to him. Huh, I almost forgot he was there, and judging from the expression on his face, he does not appreciate being ignored. Well, I guess I can score another one in my _piss-off-the-illusive-man _column. "I have your mission reports, and the official Alliance reports. Why don't you enlighten me as to your impressions of the _Normandy_'s commanding officer and her mission?"

"Commander Shepard seems very determined to complete her mission. The Council, on the other hand, does not seem to consider the Reapers a real threat, judging by her assignments and their lack of support - I'm guessing that the only reason they sent the _Normandy_ after Saren is because they can't deny he's gone rogue, and they're trying to cover their tracks." Typical politicians, really. "Once that is accomplished, I doubt they'll be willing to hear any more about the Reapers."

"And your assessment of the Reaper threat?"

"It's real. Very, very real. You've read the mission report on the Normandy's shakedown cruise to Eden Prime. What happened there, the transformation of the colonists into husks, is only the beginning." And just like that, all the levity in making fun of Tim disappears. As much as I don't like the guy, as much as I know he's going to stab us in the back later on, right now, we're on the same side. And that old saying, keep your friends close and your enemies closer? Yeah, I'm hoping that I can do some damage control there when the time comes.

Tim nods contemplatively. "And the extent of the threat?"

"At this point, we don't really know." Well, I _do_ know, but I can't reveal that just yet. "But considering that Saren has a good contingent of geth following him, as well as some unknown Reaper tech that we saw on Eden Prime, plus the resources to pull off Noveria, we're looking at a considerable threat."

"Ah yes, the rachni. Shepard noted in her report that she released them on your suggestion. We could have made good use of the queen. We could have bred an army to combat the Reapers."

So, he did get a hold of the classified parts of the report that she sent to Anderson, huh? I know that her official report indicates that the rachni were all destroyed in the self-destruct of Rift Station and that there was no queen. The only people who know the truth about the queen are her ground team and Anderson. And, apparently, Tim. Miranda, too, probably.

"No, you couldn't," I disagree with him.

"And why is that?"

"Because the rachni, without their queen, are very vulnerable to Reaper indoctrination. You may have ended up handing them an army of their own. And besides, who are _you_ to dictate the destiny of an entire race?"

"That is not your decision to make. We are at war, and we must make use of any asset at our disposal. Humanity's survival is paramount to all other concerns."

Oh boy, I can tell this is going to be a long day...

T

"I need a drink." That's the first thing that comes out of my mouth as I shamble out of Miranda's office and into the living room.

"How bad was it?"

I shrug as I make my way past her sitting at the kitchen table reading a datapad and grab a bottle of some sort of orange soda from the fridge. I'm not entirely sure what it is, but it isn't half bad. And it beats the crap we get aboard the _Normandy_ any day. "About as I expected. He got on my nerves, I got on his. Apparently, you should be ready to kill me the moment my usefulness to him ends."

When Miranda doesn't say anything after that, I turn around, wondering what's wrong. Huh, I think I said something I shouldn't have, because she's staring at me blankly, the datapad forgotten in her hand. "Patrick, termination orders are nothing to joke about."

"I know. But I saw that one coming a mile away. The guy's kind of predictable."

I can't help the chuckle that escapes me at the face Miranda makes when I tell her that one of the greatest galactic masterminds is predictable. Well, of _course_ he's predictable to me, because I sort of know what he's going to do. But it's still funny, because to her I'm dismissing him out of hand.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not underestimating Tim in the slightest. But I'll be damned if I'm going to make it easy for him to go on a rampaging power trip and play right into the hands of the Reapers. If it's up to me, I'm going to make sure that all the Cerberus resources that you had to fight against in Mass Effect 3 are on _Shepard_'s side this time around. There's too many other things to be scared of in this goddamn universe, he just doesn't rate.

"Look," I tell her, "I'll be careful. I know this is serious business, and I know what I'm doing. Mostly. But in all honesty? Right now, he's not worrying me. And to be perfectly honest, he rubs me the wrong way."

"I understand that, but pushing his buttons the way you're doing is a very quick way to disappear...permanently," Miranda cautions quietly. Damn, is that concern I hear in her voice?

I guess she doesn't want to lose her prime asset aboard the _Normandy_. Not to mention the six months of intensive training and Cerberus money she sank into me. All right, I guess I could dial it down a bit - I'm no good to anyone if Timmy boy decides to have me offed. But I'm so going to make sure he's going to get his ass kicked later on. "I'll be more careful from now on," I repeat to her. "But I kind of had to do this, you know. He was pushing why I'd be useful to him, and I'm not going to just fold and hand over all my cards."

"No, I'd imagine not," Miranda admits with a small smile. "Are you going to tell me what was said?"

"Sure, but it wasn't anything you didn't already know. He just tried to pick my brains on what I know about the Reapers."

"I imagine it was like talking to a wall."

"For him, yeah."

A grin lights up Miranda's face for a moment. "Well, if you were every bit as reticent with him as you've been with me, then I'm quite sure you've suceeded in your mission to annoy him. Not that I would recommend doing so on a regular basis, but I guess that is one way to make a first impression."

"That's me, I like making a big introduction."

"You certainly did with me," she chuckles. "You'll have to tell me sometime just _how_ you knew my name when I walked into that C-Sec office. That scared the hell out of me, you know."

"But did I make an impression?"

"You did make an impression," she confirms easily, leaning back in her chair.

"Enough not to shoot me?" I add with a lopsided grin.

"Barely. Although there have been times during your training that I've been tempted to," she replies with a smirk that is all Miranda. You know that smirk she does when she knows she has the last word? The way the corners of her eyes crinkle in amusement as she stares you down and her lips barely curve up in an almost predatory smile? Yup, that one.

I take a sip of my soda. "So, why haven't you?" I ask her, leaning against the counter. "For that matter, from what it sounds like, he wanted you to just put me through the wringer and torture whatever information I had out of me. why didn't you?"

Miranda's quiet for a while as she just stares at me...I'm getting slightly uncomfortable here, because I'm not sure why she's looking at me like that. Kind of impassive, neutral, as if she's observing an interesting specimen of a science experiment. Then, finally, she answers.

"You intrigued me." She folds her hands in her lap, looking uncharacteristically demure and passive. "I was about ready to do just that, but something about you just made me wonder _what if_. What if you were right? What if you really _could_ help us. There were too many questions, and despite all modern interrogation techniques, people still tend to say whatever they think we want to hear when they're being subjected to it."

"And here I thought it was because I was such a likeable guy," I reply in jest.

"With all the personality of a brick." Miranda shoots back, smiling slightly. "I felt like I was hitting my head against one at first, trying to get information out of you. Then you just started pulling all that intel on Cerberus out of thin air, and I had no idea what to do with you. For the longest time, I was convinced you actually _were _Alliance Special Ops, just because you knew so much about us."

"I hear a but coming..."

Miranda shakes her head in plain amusement as she reaches for her coffee. "No ASO operative would've been stupid enough to get arrested by C-Sec for loitering. Not to mention the fact that you were entirely too smug and forthcoming with all the information you _knew_ would throw me off-balance. Which, of course, could've been the plan all along, which threw me for a loop."

Well, she's got me there. "Guilty as charged," I admit with a flourish. "To be honest, I never really expected to run into you, _there_, of all places. I kind of made up my game plan as I went along."

"I figured as much." Miranda eyes me from under her lashes. "How exactly _did_ you know my name? That was quite a gamble you took. You knew just what information to feed me to get me interested, but not enough to consider you a security risk and have you eliminated on the spot."

Oh crap, looks like I maneuvered myself into a big pile of bantha poo-doo again. Me and my big mouth. "That's...a rather long story."

"Part of that _other_ long story you were going to tell me eventually?"

"Kind of."

Miranda lets out a long, huffy sigh. "Am I ever going to hear it?"

I open my mouth and almost say _when the time is right_, but that's just so cliche, and I can't do that to her. Honestly, I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to tell her. And for once, I tell her the utter truth. Not from a certain point of view, not a half-truth by omission, but the utter and complete truth. "I don't know."

"At least you're honest about that."

"I'm sorry," is all I can say. Because, well, what do you say to someone in a situation like that?

She shakes her head a little and carefully sets down her cup. "I guessed already that I would never get the full story. It's something you get used to in my line of work."

"For what it's worth, what I did tell you, it was the truth. And you really _would _never believe my full story," I tell her with a bit of a sad smile. "And who knows? Maybe when this is all over and things have quieted down, maybe you'll be in the mood to hear a crazy man's crazy story, and I'll be able to tell you. You never know."

"Don't make promises you can't keep." Miranda gets up, drops her cup in the sink, and turns to face me. "It's quite all right. I trust you, and that's good enough for now. And whatever Saren has planned, I'm confident we can put an end to it."

Well, shit, now I need _more_ than one drink. Figures hanging out with Chakwas and Shepard would turn me into an alcoholic, but I can't help but feel guilty for keeping Miranda in the dark. Logically, I know she'd never believe me, and there's hardly a way for me to prove to her that I'm from another dimension where she's a character in a video game, not unless Q makes an appearance and does something impressive. And he's already told me that he won't do that, pretty much told me that I can't tell her where I'm really from.

Doesn't make it any easier, though. True, if I told her she'd probably cut me off from our anti-Reaper operations and throw me in the loony bin, but she's become...well, dare I say it? A friend. A friend who's probably my only ally right now who knows just how deep I'm in it in this war against the Reapers. Keeping the extent of the coming Reaper invasion from her isn't going to be easy. I'm already dreading the day _Sovereign_ goes down and the Collectors show up, and I'll have to tell her that, _no, this isn't the end yet_.

It's in fact just the beginning.

"Yeah." The entire time spent talking with Tim has left a sour taste in my mouth, and talking with Miranda...well, it just made me feel bad. "You need me for anything else tonight?"

"No, why?"

"Because I'm about to go out to a bar and get rip-roaringly drunk."

T

Since Chora's Den has been closed after Fist's untimely demise the last time Shepard was on the Citadel - does anyone else think that trouble and chaos follow that woman like a trained pet dog? - the only place where anyone can go to get a good drink that isn't halfway across another ward is the Flux. Even though it's more of a nightclub than a bar, there's still a bar area. Granted, it's directly adjacent to one of the dance floors, but that just means most people just pop in, grab a drink, and head off to dance again, leaving most of the stools empty.

Except for the two people already sitting there by the time I join them.

"Moreau, Alenko," I greet them.

"Grayson! You made it! Your boss-lady finally let you go?" Joker asks, raising his glass to me in greeting.

"Yeah." I wave over the bartender, a white-and-grey marked turian, and give him my order. "Serrice Ice Brandy. Don't bother putting away the damn bottle."

"Dang, Grayson, a whole bottle? That stuff's strong enough to knock down Chakwas and Shepard when they drink it all night."

I look at the mostly-full bottle, then grab it and tip a good amount into the glass the barkeep left there for me. "Yeah, well...don't ever hang out around those two unless you want to go through two livers a year, Moreau. It's really not good for your health."

"Yeah, no, I'd kinda figured that out," Joker shoots back with a grin. "Hey, Alenko!"

Kaidan, who's sitting on Joker's other side, looks up drearily from the drink he's nursing. "What?" he slurs. To my shock, the drink's not the only thing he's nursing. Decorating his face is a hell of a shiner on his left eye.

Dang, looks like Kaidan's actually the more drunk of the two. Didn't see that one coming. I just hope he doesn't get one of his biotic migraines on top of the hangover he'll have in the morning, because that'd probably be worse than him PMSing. Yeah, I do not want to deal with a cranky Kaidan. Wonder what happened to him.

"Why's he so drunk?" I ask Joker, tipping my glass towards the staff lieutenant.

The _Normandy_'s pilot just shrugs and grins. "He asked the Chief for a dance, and she shot him down. Pretty hard, too. Man, she sure didn't pull her punches, literally, I wonder what's wrong with her?"

"'s a bitch," Kaidan mutters. Almost didn't hear him over the music and all, but _dang_, never thought he'd say that about Ashley.

I tip back one of my brandy glasses. "So what exactly happened?"

"Dunno," Joker says, "we were having a good time when a couple others from the crew stopped by. You know, Adams, hell, even Pressly dragged his head out of the regulation handbook and came in for a drink. When Alenko saw the Chief, he said he was gonna ask her to dance. But then...well-"

Before he can go any further, there's a lot of scuffling on one of the lower dance floors that draws our attention - considering how loud the music is, the fact that the noise actually reached us is quite impressive. Joker just sighs and says, "And that's pretty much what happened to Alenko."

He points out a figure in a regulation Alliance jumpsuit on the lower floor. Wait a minute...is that Ashley? She's pushing a human in a C-Sec uniform away from her, and reaching around him to...holy cow. She just slugged a guy down there. What the hell?

"What's going on with her?"

Joker just shrugs. "Beats me. She's been grumpy all day for the last couple days on board. Why do you think I don't like going down there? I hate dealing with all that."

"Yeah, well, looks like she's about to get busted for it. I'll be right back."

"Wait!" Joker calls after me.

"What?"

"You sure you want to get involved in that?" He tilts his head towards where Ash is being stopped by two more burly C-Sec officers.

"Not particularly, no. But I'd rather find out what's bugging her than have her get in trouble with Shepard or C-Sec."

Joker just chuckles and shakes his head. "Man, you're either braver than I thought, or stupider."

"I'd go with stupid. Trust me, no matter how many times I do this shit and it ends badly for me, I never stop." Hell, it's true.

"Well, then, can I have your bottle so I can drink to you posthumously?"

"No!" I glare at Joker in mock anger. "Do _not_ drink my booze!" And after a brief pause, I add, quietly, "After this night, I think I'm gonna need another bottle."

Goddammit. This just figures. One night just couldn't have had enough shit piled into it, so fucking Murphy just had to add more. As I make my way down to the lower dance floor, I'm starting to wonder if my stay in this universe has turned me completely suicidal, because, well, Ashley doesn't even _tolerate_ me, for starters. But dammit, Shepard doesn't need this kind of trouble, this kind of publicity right now.

And besides, what the _hell_ is her _problem_?

By the time I get down there I'm almosft afraid that Ash is going to get physical with those C-Sec guys...and not in a good way. "What's the problem here?"

One of them turns around to look at me. "Sir? Who're you?"

"I'm..." think fast, think fast. Technically, Kaidan and Shepard are her immediate superiors, but she's a noncom, and technically, officially, I guess, as a commissioned officer I outrank her as an NCO. "I'm her superior officer. What's going on?"

"Ma'am, will you please calm down! Ma'am!" the other C-Sec officer shouts over the din.

His partner turns sideways to let me pass. "We have received several complaints about her getting into violent altercations by patrons tonight. Since she's a woman, once or twice could've been her just slapping some over-eager suitor. But seven complaints..."

He pushes a couple of people aside so we can stand next to his colleague. "See for yourself," he says.

_Dang_, that's rough. Looks like Kaidan's not the only one who got a hell of a wallop tonight. "Was she provoked?" I ask, although I think I already know the answer.

"Not at all. All the reports say all they did was ask her if she would like to dance."

Ashley's still struggling with one of the C-Sec guys. Man, I got no idea what's wrong with her. Maybe I should ask Chakwas to take a look? Could be anything really, from PTSD to, well, drugs, hallucinations, or hell, maybe she's a paranoid schizophrenic in this universe and off her meds. She wasn't anything like this in the game, something's definitely up. But I've got to get her to calm down first. Well, she's a ground pounder. Let's see if this works for grunts here, too.

Channeling my inner Gunny R. Lee Ermey, I raise my voice and holler.

"_Attention_!"

Her reflexes from basic training take over and she stops moving and snaps to a parade rest. The moment she catches sight of me, though, she glares at me. Man, if her eyes were lasers, I'd be a smoldering pile of soot on the floor right now. What the hell's going on with her? "Chief Williams, what the hell are you doing?"

"None of your business."

"It is my business if ship's crew are provoking fights and assaulting civilians. You're in a hell of a lot of trouble if you keep this up and C-Sec charges you. The Commander isn't going to be happy."

_That_ got her to quiet down real quick. I turn to one of the C-Sec officers. "I'd appreciate it if we could avoid having charges pressed. I'll call our CO and we'll deal with her, if that's all right."

The two cops look at each other for a moment, then call it in. A brief discussion on their comms later, one of them nods. "All right, but we would like to be present for it. There's a back room office we can use."

"Thanks." I key my omni-tool to call Shepard. After a couple of rings, she picks up.

"Shepard."

"Sorry to bother you, Commander, but we've got a bit of an incident here at the Flux. Your presence would be appreciated."

There's a pause, and I can just imagine her sighing in exasperation, or something. Finally, "I'm on my way."

The line goes dead, and I look up at the C-Sec cop. "Lead the way."

As the four of us shuffle along, I can't help but think that I was wrong. I'm not gonna need another bottle tonight.

I'm gonna need _two_.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter Eighteen**

The back room office looks way too much like an interrogation room to me, but that's mostly because of where it's located - deep inside the Citadel wards, there's really no way to put windows in a room, so it's just four walls, a door, a table, some chairs, and a lot of filing cabinets. One of the C-Sec officers is standing guard outside, while me and the other cop are standing inside. Ash is sitting in one of the chairs, and we're all just waiting for Shepard to get here now.

Finally the door opens, and Shepard walks in. I shoot her a quick salute, and she just nods at me and the C-Sec officer, then proceeds to stand in front of Ashley. I can already tell from her expression she's _not_ happy at all, and well, I really don't want to be in Ash's place right now.

"Mind telling me what you thought you were doing tonight, Gunnery Chief Williams?" Shepard finally asks, quietly.

Oh shit, that's not good. A screaming Shepard? Yeah, she's mad. A quiet Shepard? You're about to get it. Now that she's here, me and my C-Sec buddy are content to just stand back and watch the show with some kind of morbid fascination, because we all know where this is headed. I may not be real military, but I'm willing to bet that assault on civilians, and unprovoked assault at that, is gonna land you in the brig, at least.

"I didn't want to dance," Ash replies quietly.

"Didn't...didn't want to dance?" There's an incredulous quality to the Commander's tone now. Can't really fault her, the nonchalance with which Ash just replied has me thrown for a loop, too. I mean, she never struck me as a particularly violent character. "C-Sec has charges of seven counts of assault against you, Chief. If you _didn't want to dance_ as you so put it, mind telling me why the hell you decided to go around swinging at people?"

"Have you seen Kaidan, Commander?" I ask at this point.

"No, I haven't."

"He's number eight. Got a hell of a shiner, too." I hate ratting on her, but she's assaulted her own _crewmate_, for crying out loud. And the poor schmuck just asked if she wanted to hit the dance floors. Hell, this is _Kaidan_ we're talking about, the guy was probably ultra-polite about it, too.

"What do you have to say for yourself, Chief?"

"I...nothing, Commander," Ashley mutters, looking down at the table. "I have no excuse for my behavior." Almost as quickly as her defiant anger flared up earlier, it's gone, and she just kind of deflates in her chair.

"You better have an explanation for this, Chief, because the entire time you've been aboard my ship, you've been antagonistic, reclusive, and standoffish with members of my crew." Shepard's tone softens a little and she leans in towards her. "Talk to me, Ash. What's going on with you?"

"Nothing, Commander. I overreacted. It won't happen again."

"This isn't an overreaction, Ash," Shepard says quietly, and I can tell she's concerned. The Commander shakes her head and pulls back when Ashley doesn't answer. "You're damn right it won't happen again. You're obviously not fit for duty right now, so I'm pulling you off the ground team. That's if you're even still a member of my crew by the time this all gets sorted out."

That _definitely _gets a reaction from her as Ashley looks up, her eyes wide. "Commander, please, you can't pull me off the _Normandy_. I...I need to be there, I need to keep on fighting. For my men. I need to do this. I'll deal with this, Commander, I swear."

"I've left you to _deal with it_ at your discretion since Eden Prime, Gunnery Chief Williams. Apparently, you haven't. I'm sorry, Ash, but you don't really leave me much of a choice."

"_Please_, Commander. I'll do whatever it takes, but I can't just quit now. I promised them, Shepard," Ashley pleads, her voice rising. "I _promised them_!"

I think I have a vague idea of what she's talking about, but from the look on her face, Shepard's already beat me to it. I can tell she's torn...technically, as Ashley's commanding officer, she's supposed to ground her and potentially court-martial her. I don't know...is an offense like this court-martialable by the military?

Shepard sighs a moment, then looks over at the C-Sec officer. "In my authority as an officer of the Systems Alliance, her direct superior, and a Council spectre, I request she be placed in my custody."

"Since she's a soldier under your command, that is acceptable. Just make sure she doesn't do it again. Next time, we're taking her with us."

"Thank you, officer."

"However," he adds, "we require that she be placed under house arrest for the time being. She will not be allowed back aboard the Citadel until appropriate disciplinary measures have been taken."

"Of course. Lieutenant, with me." Shepard gets up, and between me and her, with our two C-Sec escorts, we head all the way back to the _Normandy_'s docking bay. Well, looks like I'm not getting that drink tonight, after all. Shepard is uncharacteristically silent during the trip back, and so is Ash. It's really weird, because her mood did pretty much a one-eighty since the club. There she was all fire and violence and fury, but now she's subdued and almost depressive.

Right now, she's just looking...well, sad and depressed. Maybe having Chakwas talk to her isn't such a bad idea. I'm about to tell Shepard as much when we reach the _Normandy_, and the two C-Sec cops with us halt at the airlock. Shepard steps into it, but pauses there, me and Ashley in tow, kind of the ceremonial handing over of responsibility. This is Shepard's turf now, and the cops are handing over jurisdiction to her.

"Gunnery Chief Williams," Shepard intones formally, "you are hereby confined to quarters pending an investigation and formal evaluation of this matter. Lieutenant, please escort the Chief to the crew's quarters and make sure she stays there. I'll be right there."

"Yes, Commander." Not entirely happy about being stuck with a mood-swinging Ashley, but right now, it doesn't really look like she's going to flip out on me. Then again...

She doesn't even look at me the entire trip down from Deck One, nothing, not even a glare. When we do get to the bunk cabins, she steps through the door without a word, and I still have no idea if I want to talk to her, or what to even say. The decision's out of my hands, though, as she just walks in and lets the door shut in my face. Guess I'm stuck here till Shepard gets back. Not like we've got individual quarters we can lock her in, and we don't exactly have a brig, so I'm guessing having someone stand guard makes kind of sense.

It doesn't take long for the Commander to come down the stairs, Chakwas in tow. "Lieutenant," Shepard greets me. The two women pause before the door, and for a moment, the three of us just stand around awkwardly in the corridor, me leaning against the bulkhead next to the door to the crew's bunks, and Shepard and Chakwas standing across from me.

"What happened, Lieutenant? The C-Sec report just said that she started swinging," Shepard asks.

"I don't know much more than you, Commander. I barely even got to Flux when C-Sec arrived. You might want to talk to Alenko, though. He's the first one who talked to her when she came into the club, I think. At least that's what Moreau says." I just shrug and look over at the closed door. "It's weird, Commander. She was about ready to slug me when I tried talking down the C-Sec officers, and then she just went all quiet. Just like that."

"And before that?" Chakwas pipes in.

"I have no idea. To be honest, I haven't talked to her much. I kind of got the feeling she doesn't like me." Another shrug and I'm suppressing the urge to rub my temples, because my head's starting to swim. Guess all the excitement of the day is finally getting to me. "Dammit, and I had a nice bottle of brandy lined up for tonight, too."

"I thought you didn't drink?" Shepard looks at me with some amusement.

I mock-glare back at her. "I didn't use to, until I met you. If I turn into a raging alcoholic, I'm blaming you."

"As long as you're sober when I need you on the ground, that's perfectly fine with me," Shepard replies with a small smile. "All right, Lieutenant, we'll take it from here. Thank you for bringing this to my attention," she says. "If you hurry, you can probably still have that drink at the Flux."

"No thanks, Commander, I don't think I'm in the mood anymore. What do you think is going on with her?" It's not really my place to ask, but I'm curious. Have been, ever since I noticed that her personality differed so much from the game.

Shepard and Chakwas exchange a brief glance, and the good doctor gives a tiny, almost imperceptible nod. But it's the Commander who answers my question. "After Eden Prime, Williams was ordered to see an Alliance psychiatrist during our stay at the Citadel. Standard procedure, after an event like the one she lived through."

"Psych eval and counseling," I nod. Makes sense. Hell, most militaries back home send you in for counseling for _less_. A lot less. "Her first command?"

"Her first _week_ in command," Shepard confirms. "Base shrink said she was fine, and she refused further counseling after the initial session. Since nothing seemed overly wrong with her, he let it go."

"You think he missed something?" Jabbing my thumb at the crew quarters, I can't help but ask, "something like that is pretty hard to miss."

"Severe and abrupt mood swings, extreme negative responses and hostility towards perceived triggers, hypervigilance, extreme irritability," Chakwas ticks off. "Not to mention her escalating hostility - initially towards you, then to others. It's been a couple of weeks, it's a classic case of delayed post-traumatic stress disorder. There _are_ cases where the patient is actually fully functional and shows no signs immediately after the trauma, but will degenerate into a rather severe case days, weeks, or even months after. It's not uncommon."

"So you think that's it? You think perhaps that's why she was so confrontational?" It makes sense. Hell, PTSD is common amongst soldiers, even those who haven't been in anything especially traumatic other than regular combat. Not that _regular combat_ in theaters like Afghanistan or Iraq or Bosnia is not traumatic per se, but I've known people who've had PTSD after a single, rather uneventful tour. As in, no IEDs, no ambushes, just standard patrol and recon stuff without ever getting into major skirmishes. But something nags the back of my mind - I mean, it all fits. Ashley got over the loss of her squad really quickly and really easily in the game; I think she had, what, maybe three lines with Shepard about it?

So this actually makes total sense. She's stressed, has lived through a traumatic event, and is obviously not dealing with it well. The symptoms are all spot on. Maybe I'm just reading too much into it. Overthinking things...I tend to do that. A lot, actually.

"I would think so," Chakwas confirms. "I'm no psychiatrist, but I would assume that she somehow feels either that you remind her of her squad's loss, or feels threatened by you, somehow."

"Threatened?" By me? "That's ridiculous. What'd I ever do to her?"

Shepard looks up abruptly. "You replaced her on away missions," she says quietly.

Fuck. A couple of things actually fall into place. Ash has been on board since Eden Prime. We're two major missions into the game, and she hasn't gone on a single one. Well, neither has Tali, but to be honest, I think Tali's quite happy in engineering. Aside from Kaidan, who pretty much acts as Shepard's XO, she's the only one who hasn't gone.

And both times I've filled in. If I hadn't been around, she probably would've made the ground team on Therum. And Noveria? Well, I guess that one's debatable, since I wasn't supposed to actually _go_. "She wants revenge for her company, doesn't she?" I ask, although I'm pretty sure I know the answer already.

"She wants to keep on fighting for them. To not let their deaths have been pointless," Shepard confirms. "I had a long talk with her about it after Eden Prime. She's determined, and she's dedicated. Very good traits, and at the same time, very dangerous. I haven't actually fielded her because I was afraid she'd do something unecessarily dangerous."

Like Virmire.

"So now what's going to happen to her?"

"We'll see," Shepard replies quietly. "We'll talk to her in the morning, and send her in for another psych eval. Depending on the verdict, hopefully we can let it go with a formal reprimand and forego a court martial."

A court martial? "You really think it's that bad?"

"She's a soldier, Grayson. She assaulted seven civilians and one of her fellow crewmates without provocation. The only thing she has going for her right now is the fact that she's due for a psych eval. I think there's a pretty good chance we can leave it at a reprimand, though."

Damn. We need Ash. Not just because of Virmire, but because she's...well, she's a member of Shepard's crew. Mass Effect without Ash or Kaidan is like...well, like Mass Effect without Wrex. Sure, they weren't exactly my favorite characters - Horizon comes to mind - but they're both good people. And hell, _Virmire_. How the hell is Virmire going to go if one of the isn't there? Okay, that came out wrong. I don't want either of them to die on Virmire, and I'm dreading the day that mission comes up, but hell if I'm not going to do my darndest to make sure everyone makes it out alive. Dylan almost made it, so it _can_ be done.

Emphasis on _almost_. Well, live and learn from other people's mistakes. But that's a thought for another day. "So what's going to happen now, Commander?"

"We have our orders from the Council and Alliance Command. They've requested we check out a few suspicious locations for terrorist activity."

"What about Feros?"

"During our detour to Noveria the SSV _Hawking_ took over the Feros distress call." Shepard seems almost displeased at the notion when what she said finally catches up with me.

"Wait, they sent another ship?"

The Commander nods. "Apparently, the colony's distress call was too urgent to await our return from Noveria. Command went ahead and dispatched another frigate to respond while we were en route from Noveria."

Well..._dang_. That's different. Then again, it did always strike me as kind of odd that most missions didn't have a timer on them, and that the _Normandy_ would be the only vessel to conduct...well, every single mission in the galaxy. I mean, if the thing with Saren was so urgent, how did Shepard find the time to divert for exploration and all those side quests? Makes sense, I guess, that in real life they'd split the duties and non-top secret missions with other ships.

Well, at least that means we don't have to deal with the Thorian. But...wait. Fuck. That means we don't get the cipher. The prothean cipher. Shit, I wonder, since Saren _didn't_ get the location of the Mu Relay from the rachni queen, will the cipher give him the location? It'd make sense, if any of the beacons he's come in contact with contains its location. Double fuck, we need to get a hold of Shiala, and _fast_.

"Any word from the _Hawking_ on how it went, yet?" I ask, and hopefully I don't seem too eager.

"Nothing yet. Although Anderson did say that he was expecting them to report in within the next two days." Shepard shrugs. "We have our own orders."

Oh, that tone doesn't sound happy at all. One look at her face confirms it, because even her best poker face can't really hide the brief flash of irritation at whatever happened when she reported to the Council and the Alliance. "Doesn't sound like the meeting with your bosses went all that well," I mutter.

"They're sending us on _patrol_. The Council called the Mu Relay a _myth_. I told them we needed to find the Mu Relay and locate the Conduit, but all they gave me was that they were _working on it_." Shepard sighs. "In the meantime, we have our assignments. Besides, it's not like we have any other leads."

That just makes it that much more important that Miranda can find the Mu Relay. "So we're going to just go about our business while Saren does...well, whatever the hell it is he does?" I ask her.

"Those are our orders." Shepard shrugs and grimaces. "I get the feeling that the Council isn't exactly eager to admit to the existence of these Reapers. They still believe Saren and the matriarch are acting alone."

"And what's their motivation? That they're completely and utterly bonkers?" I ask sarcastically. "Because there's no reason for an asari matriarch - a _respected_ asari matriarch - and an equally-respected spectre to just go apeshit and all genocidal. Well, unless the Council told them they'd just cancelled their retirement benefits, or something."

That gets a tiny chuckle from both women. "Well, you enjoy the rest of your leave, Lieutenant. I have an entirely new mess to sort out. Never a dull moment around here," Shepard sighs.

T

"You're home late. And I don't smell alcohol, so I'm guessing your plan to get drunk didn't work out so well." Miranda's already looking at me the moment I step through the door. Does she have surveillance cameras in the hallway, or something?

Nevermind, this is _Miranda_ we're talking about. Of _course_ she has surveillance up. And taking a look at my watch - well, my omni-tool's clock - confirms the late hour. It's past 0200 Citadel time. Of course, since I'm still running on _Normandy _time, it's not even midnight for me - it was actually really weird, adjusting to a 27 hour day. Turns out that between the asari and the turians, the two major Citadel races, a standard day-night cycle is actually 27 Earth-hours. The turians wanted their thirty that they are used to from Palaven, but the asari insisted on twenty-five. So, I guess somewhere along the line they settled on twenty-seven. Since the _Normandy_ is a human vessel, we actually run a twenty-four hour clock.

It wreaks havoc on calenders and time-keeping. Of course, the Citadel, being a space station, barely even keeps a day-night cycle, since artificial lights can be powered all the time. But still, I gained almost three hours stepping off the _Normandy_. And trust me, trying to unify everyone's calender, different time units and day lengths and year lengths and all to a common dating system is a bigger nightmare than trying to figure out faster-than-light travel.

Turns out that Alliance diplomats for once did the sensible thing and decided that, screw you, we're going to run an Earth calender on our ships, and some software wiz kid wrote a neat app for converting dates into asari and turian calenders. The guy must've made a fortune off the omni-app store, if such a thing exists, because it's pretty much standard issue now. You know how Wikipedia does all the little linking things? Yeah, every date in every transmission is automatically linked to date conversions now.

Wait, I'm digressing. Where was I? Oh right, hanging up my jacket as I walk into the apartment I'm sharing with Miranda. And she's still looking at me curiously.

"Let's see...I almost got into a barfight trying to break up said barfight," I tick off. "Then there's trouble with some of the crew. Then I run into Tali on my way off the _Normandy_ - and she insists on showing me what she did with that geth pulse rifle I picked up for her - and then I've got to help Moreau haul Alenko's drunk ass back to the ship, and by the time that got done I just didn't feel like it anymore."

Yep, Kaidan got _that_ drunk. I really would wonder why, but I just can't bring myself to care tonight. Between the illusive bastard and all the shit that went on with Ashley, I'm beat. And I really can't control my mouth, my brain just isn't capable of thinking that far ahead anymore.

"You didn't have to wait up for me."

"I wasn't."

"Then what're you still doing up?" I pour myself a glass of water and down the whole thing straight. A second one follows right after. "I mean, come on, sitting on the couch in the living room at oh, uh...oh-two in the morning? Don't tell me you're reading mission reports."

Miranda smiles a little as I flop down on the ground in front of the sofa and set my glass on the coffee table. The datapad she was reading slides over next to my glass.

"Huh..._In Her Majesty's Navy_?" It sounds like some kind of novel. But, but...Miranda doesn't read novels. She's always at work, always professional, always...oh, who am I kidding. Well, two of my preconceived notions of the Mass Effect characters went out the window today already, why not make it three. Third time's the charm, right? Between a PTSD'ing Ashley, a drinking Kaidan, a novel-reading and relaxed Miranda really shouldn't surprise me.

Scrolling up to the header indicates that, interestingly, it's a science fiction book written almost a hundred years ago, before the discovery of the prothean cache on Mars. Does that make it an antique? "Didn't exactly figure you for old literature." Of course, for Miranda it's probably something more like a fairy tale, something like maybe people in my time would think of Orwell's _1984_. Or _The Time Machine_ by Wells.

"It's actually quite interesting," Miranda comments, plucking the pad out of my hand again. "The author had some interesting views on the socio-political development of humanity following the development of interstellar travel. Of course, she didn't quite take into account that we're not alone out there."

"Huh." You know, that actually sounds pretty interesting. I know, I know, my taste in literature is weird. "So..." I mutter awkwardly.

"I could ask you the same thing, you know," Miranda says casually, leaning back into the couch. It's weird, every other woman looks relaxed when she's on a couch with a good book, either leaning back, or curled up against one side, or stretched out along the couch. But Miranda's...well, she's sitting there, first of all, in a strategic position that allows her to see the window and the door, but actually remain in cover behind the kitchen divider, and...

I'm overthinking again. Brain, shut the hell up, I'm tired.

"Ask me what?"

"Why you're up still. You could've bunked aboard the _Normandy_, especially since it sounded like you had to drop off your crewmate. Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko, was it?"

"Yeah."

"His dossier doesn't really make him out to be someone to get that drunk on shore leave," she muses with a chuckle. "Although both the commander and the doctor seem to. I take it they're rubbing off on their crew?"

"They're definitely rubbing off on me," I mutter, rubbing my temples at the memory of the two monstrous hangovers I had after drinking with Chakwas and Shepard. "And I really wish they weren't," I add quietly.

That gets an arched eyebrow from Miranda. "Really?"

"Alcohol does wondrous thinks to soothe a ravaged soul," I sing-song. "The doc's words, not mine. She's a sleepy drunk, by the way. Shepard's the funny drunk."

"And what are you?" Miranda asks with a knowing smirk.

"Hell if I know, I can barely even remember what I talked to them about when we got pissed, nevermind what kind of state I was actually in."

"I'll keep that in mind." There's that smirk _again_, as if she's planning something, or is making a mental note for future use that I just know is going to bite me in the ass. "So, why _are_ you still awake?"

"'cause the _Normandy_ has bunks the size of freaking bunk beds, and you've got a nice and cozy queen-sized bed in here?" I blink owlishly for a moment until I realize just how that came out. "Uhm, that...that came out wrong."

There's that predatory smile of hers again. Gah. "I don't know," she says, leaning forward a little. "It sounded like a proposition to me."

Uhm...okay. That's new. I mean, I don't really have much experience in these kinds of situations, but that look Miranda's giving me is positively..._sultry_? And the way she's leaning forward, well, it gives me a really, _really_ good look down the top of her uniform. Hey, I'm tired and confused, not blind!

"Uh...what are you doing, Miranda?" Because this is really creeping me out. Man, this day's been totally weird. And now Miranda's...coming on to me?

She looks at me, the corners of her lips curling up ever so slightly. And then her eyes slowly close behind those long, long lashes. And for just a moment, I'm tempted to lean in and kiss her.

Whoa, where the hell did that come from? Man, I must be overly tired. This is goddamn _Miranda Lawson_, genetically perfect, highly educated, genius-level ass-kicking biotic superwoman. Not to mention she's my friggin' _boss_. Okay, no more alcohol for me. It's giving me weird ideas.

Hell, I need to get laid. Not having had a date for the past three years must be making me desperate. Yeah, that's it. I'm tired, Miranda looks damn hot, and she's playing with me. And I haven't had a woman in my arms in years - so sue me, I'm an engineer, not a eunuch. Good thing this didn't happen aboard the _Normandy_. Yeah, me propositioning the Commander by accident would...not have gone over well.

I'm looking back at Miranda, leaning backwards a little, waiting for the inevitable _gotcha_ that's got to come...any moment now...but it's not. This is so unlike her that it's freaking me out. I mean, more than someone like Miranda coming on to me would freak me out usually. I mean...oh, brain, shut the hell up.

"Did the Illusive Man put you up to this? That's it, isn't it? He figures you won't torture me, maybe you'll seduce me for what I know? Is that it?" I ask her, almost desperately.

She tilts her head, letting a curtain of her black hair fall across her eyes. "Is it that I'm not attractive enough? Would you prefer someone like Jane?" she hums a little, in thought. "Or perhaps someone...older? Karin, perhaps?"

Jane? Or the doc? Wait...this is _Miranda._ She _never_ calls people by their first names only. My eyes narrow in suspicion. "Who are you? You're not Miranda."

"What are you talking about?" she looks genuinely confused, but there's a slight waver in the timbre of her voice that catches my attention immediately. I've heard those sub-vocals before. That vibrato, that deep thrumming, no matter how well disguised.

"_Sovereign_." I've never heard his voice before, but I've heard _Harbinger_'s often enough to recognize a Reaper when I hear him. "You can stop your silly little mind game now."

"Are you all right? This isn't like you?" The Miranda facsimile reaches out to touch my forehead as if checking for a fever. But I'm not falling for it. Hell no.

I slap her hand aside and slide backwards. "Cut it out. I know it's you, _Sovereign_. So you can stop pretending. Why're you here?" How the _hell_ did a Reaper worm his way into my head? I wasn't even _near_ any Reaper tech!

"You're delirious. Maybe we should-"

Maybe it's the sleep deprivation, maybe it's the fact that I've got the beginnings of a hell of a headache, or maybe I'm finally just getting sick of this fucked up universe and the Reapers. But in that instant, I decide that, fuck it, I'm gonna let that little motherfucker have it right between the eyes. "Oh, shut the frak up," I snap at Miranda's image. "You're not fooling anyone. Actually, you're a pretty shitty actor, _Sovereign_, because if you knew _anything_ about me or Miranda, you would've known that I never would've gone for that."

She's gone silent now, and I can't help but let out that sadistic smirk I've been saving up for _Harbinger_ as I continue. "What, you didn't know? I've gone through eight years of college without a girlfriend, you think dumping Miranda in my lap is going to make me spill the beans? Just the fact that you're _here_, wherever the fuck here is, tells me something. You're scared. You're afraid. And I made it that way."

There's an evil glint in her eyes now that I _know_ isn't Miranda. "You know what, _Sovereign_? You're done for. We're coming for you. It won't be long before we've flushed you out, and no matter how powerful you think you are, if we throw enough bullets at you, you _will_ die." I can't resist throwing out one last barb as I stand up.

"And you can tell your pal _Harbinger_ that when we're done with you, we'll be coming for _him_."

_That_ finally causes a reaction as the scene around me wavers and fades away to reveal an inky blackness interspersed with swirling clouds of grey. And where Miranda used to be, _Sovereign_'s gargantuan Reaper form now looms before me, looking down at me with that red eye that is capable of projecting a devastating beam.

"You are an unknown. An aberration."

"I tick you off," I counter easily.

"You do not belong here. Your interference must be removed."

The cocky smirk is back on my face as I summon all the bravado I can. "Good luck with that. I'm here to stay, and I'm not going away till we've kicked you all the way back to the abyss you crawled out of."

"You will serve us or we will annihilate you."

Seriously, do the Reapers have the same goddamn speechwriter as every other cookie-cutter villain out there? Now _that_ just annoys me. "How about option number three? I stick around, we kick your asses, and live happily ever after."

The giant Reaper leans down to look at me, the smooth metal of his segmented hull hovering just inches over my face. "Your presence is inconsequential. We will proceed with the cleansing. The cycle must continue."

"If it's so inconsequential, why're you here, hmm? Trying to fish for information? I know that's you trying to dig into my brain. That headache I've been having ever since Noveria, I'm willing to bet that's been you all along. What's the matter, buddy, can't figure out what makes me tick? Trying to indoctrinate me like your other minions?"

To be honest, that just came out a lot more secure than I feel, because just the _thought_ of having that Reaper rummaging around my brain is creeping me out. If he succeeds in indoctrinating me...I have no idea if I'd even know it. But he made a mistake here. He got hasty, overzealous. If he'd taken his time, I'd probably have fallen for it. That's not to say I'm safe, but at least this attempt he fucked up.

Or maybe he just wants me to think he fucked up, and it's all a ploy? Ah hell no, I'm overthinking shit again. _Sovereign_ keeps staring down at me, his eye glowing brighter. "Your presence must be eliminated. Initiating purge protocol."

"Yeah, fuck you, too, you overgrown space-squid!" I yell up at him and flip him off as the red beam envelops me.

And then I wake up in cold sweat in Miranda's apartment on the Citadel.


	19. Chapter 19

**Author's Note**: I'm baaaaaaack! Real life issues taken care of, muse snatched up and put back to work (courtesy of Disney's Wreck-It Ralph - anyone else notice the similarity between Shepard and Calhoun?), and hopefully here to stay. Enjoy!

**Chapter Nineteen**

The headache's gone - that's the first thing I notice. The second thing is that I'm actually in my bed. How the hell did I end up here? Last thing I remember, before that entire episode with _Sovereign_ trying to fuck with my head, was heading down the corridor from the landing pad to Miranda's place. To be honest, I have no idea where reality ends and fantasy starts, but I'm _sure_ I don't remember getting into bed.

"Are you awake?" Miranda's voice comes from the door. How the hell do women always know when you wake up from sleep or a coma, or general unconsciousness?

"Yeah," I mutter weakly, sitting up in the bed. "What happened?"

"I don't know. You passed out on the transit platform. I almost didn't find you."

"You came looking for me?"

"Of course." Miranda looks almost affronted at the insinuation that she wouldn't. "How are you feeling?"

"Well, surprisingly, despite the fact that my head feels like a krogan heavy metal band has been using it for a practice space, pretty good." And it's true...the headache is gone, the pressure on my temples is gone, the lingering...doubt and oppressiveness is gone. Almost as if _Sovereign_ tried to...ah, hell. The little fucker was trying to indoctrinate me. Or was he? Has anyone ever been able to successfully resist indoctrination?

Maybe something to ask Q about. Meanwhile, Miranda plucks a glass of water from the bedstand and hands it to me. "Any idea what caused it? Your medical records from the _Normandy_ don't show any injury or neural damage."

"It's not injury-related," I tell her. Although that begs the question just _how much_ I should tell her about that little episode. Best case, the stress just got to me and I hallucinated the entire encounter. Worst case? _Sovvy_ got in my head and is starting to fuck with me. Not a pleasant thought, and one that has me pretty scared at that. I really want her looking out for me. If _Sovereign_ - or any Reaper, for that matter - gets to me, they could do some serious, serious damage. And I wouldn't want to live with that, anyway.

Hence why I asked Miranda to...well. Yeah. Here's to hoping that it won't come to that. But this is Miranda. She's got to know. Especially if I'm trusting her to...to pull the trigger if it comes to that. "A psychic visit from our not-so-friendly neighbourhood space invaders," I tell her finally.

Miranda's head shoots up, her eyes flickering with alertness. "What?"

"You know how I told you I was afraid that the Reapers would try and...and indoctrinate me?" I shudder just thinking about it as it finally starts to sink in what just happened. I came face-to-face with a Reaper. "They just tried. Don't know if they succeeded, but..."

"Start from the beginning." Miranda sits down next to me, surprisingly calm, her face the very model of neutrality, but I can tell from her hand on my shoulder that she's ready to fight and kill. The tell-tale tingle of her charged biotics is unmistakable. Well, at least she's taking it seriously.

Although I'd really hate for her to kill me now. That'd really suck. "I don't know where I came in contact with Reaper tech, but apparently somewhere I did. That's the only way I know of for them to be able to influence someone. You have to be in physical contact with some of their tech. Or at least in close proximity."

"Maybe on one of your away missions?"

I shake my head. The Reapers weren't anywhere near Therum, that was all geth. And on Noveria...nothing. At least not that I can remember. "No, nothing. No Reaper tech."

"Are you sure?" Miranda tilts her head and catches my eyes.

"Yeah, I'm sure. Not unless they had a Reaper buried under that facility in Noveria." I lean back and scoot back so I'm sitting against the wall. "Hell, I'm not sure I didn't just hallucinate all of that."

"Did you?"

"Hell no." There's no way I imagined all that. And the fact that suddenly my mind's clear and I don't feel like I've been wading along with only half a night's sleep no matter how well-rested I am anymore is probably not a coincidence, either. You know, what, I wonder... "I don't know. It's weird. You know, when I left, we were all ready to kick their asses and shit?"

That gets a tiny smile from Miranda. "Yes, I remember."

"Yeah, well, sometime after getting on the _Normandy_...I dunno. I started having doubts. Wondering if I could actually do this, if I was doing the right thing. I was hesitating on shit. Second-guessing things I did. At first, I just thought that was because, well, it was a hell of a lot more intense than I anticipated it to be. And then I put it down to the emotional stress of having to shoot at people up close and personal."

That one incident with the merc on Therum still hasn't left me alone, but it's not nearly as heavy on me after Shepard's little intervention. Miranda nods in understanding. "Understandable, in your situation. Then what happened?"

"I was getting borderline depressive. Lack of sleep, nightmares, all that not-so-fun shit. And trust me, before you tell me I don't know what clinically depressed is, I've been there. Seen a shrink, and all that." Looking up at Miranda's eyes, I can see a bit of surprise reflected there at that little tidbit of information about myself. "So yeah, I know what it's like. And I was headed right for it."

"What changed?"

"Shepard got me drunk," I tell her with a wry grin. "Her and the doc got me smashingly drunk and talked some sense into me. Something about actually having done the right thing and all that. About not having shot defenseless kids. Anyway, that got me out of that major funk I was going into, but ever since then I haven't been able to shake this...well, this lingering kind of tiredness and headache. Kind of like when you don't get enough rest over a long period of time. You adapt to run on little sleep, but everything's muffled? Yeah, like that."

She's silent for a brief moment, apparently mulling things over. "So what do you think is going on? What did you see while you were unconscious?"

"Well...you." And up goes one elegantly arched eyebrow. "Almost didn't see it at first. Walked in like I'd just gotten home from the _Normandy_, and you were just sitting there, reading a book. _In Her Majesty's Navy_, I think. I talked to you some, and then..."

On second thought, maybe I shouldn't mention that I inadvertently hit on her. _Sovereign _pretending to be her. Whatever. "Well," I continue, "we talked, and then I figured out it wasn't you, and I told that little bastard off."

"How'd you know that it wasn't me? I imagine that if you were talking initially, it must have been a rather convincing impersonation," Miranda says, a slight waver in her voice. "And if so, how did the enemy know so much about you and me?"

Figures I couldn't quite sneak that past her. "Probably just from my memories and thoughts of our past interactions. I really don't think you've been compromised, not unless you've been traipsing around the galaxy touching Reaper artifacts."

"Then how did you figure out that it wasn't real?"

"You, uh...you did something that I know you'd never do." And that right there is the reason I know Miranda hasn't been compromised. _Sovereign_ was extrapolating my interactions with fake-Miranda based on _my_ thoughts, my feelings, and my memories. And he was good, very good, and very accurate. But my attraction to Miranda has always been very personal, hell it took even _me_ by surprise. There is no way _Sovereign_ would've gotten that kind of vibe from her, and the only reason he would even attempt that particular ruse is because it would play right into one of my fantasies.

Once again, I'm an engineer, not blind.

"What's that?" And Miranda will not be deterred.

"Uhm...I put my foot in my mouth. And then you, uh...I mean he, uhh...well..." Now, how do I say it best? "You tried to seduce me," I finish lamely.

She's quiet for a few long seconds, and I wonder if I'm going to end up deep-fried next, because her hand still hasn't left my arm, and it's still tingling with biotics. "I...see," she says, this weird smirk on her lips again.

"Yeah, anyway, I figured you'd never do that if you were in your right mind, and then I kind of figured out that it was someone else pretending to be you," the hasty continuation spills out of me. And I better remember not to tell her that it was mostly the voice that gave _Sovereign_ away. If she finds out I've heard his voice before...well, that's questions I'm not prepared to answer.

"Is that so?" Miranda asks.

"Yeah. So anyway, I told him to basically piss off, he gave me the obligatory bad-guy speech about how I'm a thorn in his side and need to be eliminated, etcetera, etcetera, and then I woke up."

"And that's it?"

"That's it," I confirm. Well, I don't _feel_ indoctrinated. But that's the insidious part about it, isn't it? "No side effects, no nothing. I'm feeling better than I have ever since I got on board the _Normandy_, actually."

Miranda just sits back and sighs heavily, but she never takes her eyes off me, just in case. "You certainly don't ask easy favors, do you? Is this the...indoctrination you mentioned?"

"To be honest?" I reply with a shrug, "I don't know. But I know he's been messing with my head. What that means...I don't know. Maybe I got him to back off for a little bit, and I'm feeling better because I don't have him worming his way into my head anymore."

"Or maybe you're feeling better because it's a ruse to lull you into a false sense of security. Make you believe you won the battle when eventually, you're bound to lose the war," Miranda adds.

"Or that." I can't really disagree, because that thought has crossed my mind, too. Once touched by the Reapers, you're always vulnerable. Perhaps that's their biggest mind game yet. You'll always second-guess yourself after the first time, so even if they don't do anything else to you, they've already fucked you over.

"Well, that's just wonderful. Just..." Miranda sighs again, tilting her head back in thought. "I assume you would not appreciate me killing you right now, like you asked me to?"

"You really have to ask?" I reply dryly.

Her hair cascades around her as she shakes her head. "I suppose not. You're not making this easy on me."

"Never said it was going to be." And I really can't help it, the cheeky, "sorry," just slips out, too, causing her to look over at me.

"You sounds entirely too comfortable with what's happened."

"Hey," I tell her, "after all the shit I've been through the past couple months, this really isn't much of a surprise. Part of me figured that eventually, like everyone in this fight, I'd become a target. But I've got _you_ watching my back, so those Reapers don't stand a chance."

"Damn straight." Then she looks over at me with that coquettish smile of hers. Uh-oh. "So," she says, "you're attracted to me, hm?"

T

For a change, I'm up before Miranda. Well, considering it's five in the morning on the Citadel, it's a surprise I'm up at all, but I haven't been tired at all since that episode with _Sovereign_ paying me a visit last night. So I dozed for two and a half hours and then decided to get back to work on Tali's gun.

It's back in one piece now, sitting on my desk, hopefully in working order. Man, she'd never let me live it down if I took it apart and couldn't put it back together. And no, I'm not drinking coffee, although there's a nice, large pot of it simmering right now, waiting for Miranda to wake up and consume it. Unlike me, she's actually a big coffee drinker. And like me, she likes hers _strong_. Fortunately, though, she splurged on the good stuff, so it's actually good _and_ strong, which makes it a whole lot more pleasant to smell and drink than the goop from the _Normandy_'s auto-chefs.

So that's why I'm now sitting at the kitchen table, one of the books from Miranda's collection in hand, idly scrolling through the pages and splitting my attention between it and the news holos flashing across my omni-tool. Ironically, the book I grabbed is the one that fake-Miranda was reading. Turns out that _In Her Majesty's Navy_ is the story of a female flag officer aboard a dilapidated warship who rises to command due to the officers in her way up the ranks dying - either in combat, or under mysterious circumstances.

It reads like a cross between Tom Clancy and _Master and Commander_, to be honest. With a dash of the Honorverse. And it's actually a pretty good read. I mean, it's cutthroat, and intrigue, and all that you'd expect from a spacefaring branch of humanity that is ruled like a feudal empire. And while I'm at it, I'm trying to mull over ways to find the Mu Relay...but unfortunately, it all boils down to either tracking Saren and hoping he finds it, or getting a hold of that prothean cipher, but that's not a guaranteed shot, either.

I'm not too sure about the timeline and order of events, but as close as they're together, if Saren had gotten the location of the relay from Shiala and the cipher, then I don't think he'd have gone through the trouble to send Benezia to extract it from the rachni queen. Well, that leaves us in quite the quandary. How the hell do we find the goddamn Mu Relay?

And while Cerberus is good, I don't think they can actually find _anything_ in the half a day since I told Miranda about it. The sad part is, though, it really does come down to us now, because I'm not counting on those doddering idiots on the Council to actually go out and look for the Mu Relay. They probably are trying to stop everything they sank into their anti-Saren efforts, simply because it looks like we derailed his immediate plans. Sure wouldn't put it past them.

Bah, politicians.

Then there's the fact that I'm trying to dredge up every little bit of Mass Effect lore I can remember in the hopes that it'll give me a clue as to what I'm supposed to do now. Because, well, I'm fresh out of ideas. Dammit, I should've asked the rachni queen. I almost wish Q were here...

Nah, I probably wouldn't get a straight answer out of him, anyway.

In other news, apparently the turians are trying to convince the Council to let them _pacify_ the Terminus Systems, there's been terrorist attacks in the Attican Traverse, Omega is playing host to the 2164 Pan-Galactic Music Awards, and the asari homeworld of Thessia is preparing for its annual planet-wide Festival of the Goddess.

Wait.

Thessia.

There's a fucking prothean VI on Thessia.

"Miranda!" I yell, shooting up from my chair.

We can kill two fucking birds with one fucking stone.

Just have to make sure the damn VI doesn't end up in Tim's hands, because that'd be...very, very bad. Or Udina's hands. It may give us a leg up on the coming Reaper invasion, though. Let's hope.

"What?" There's a flash of biotic energy, and a disheveled Miranda is in the doorway, her hair slightly askew and her sleeping clothes rumpled, but her eyes are alert and darting around, looking for potential threats.

I look up at her, a ridiculously wide grin on my face.

"I know how to find the Mu Relay."

T

"You're joking. The Temple of Athame?"

"Yup."

Miranda's looking at me like I've lost my mind. In fact, I'm not entirely sure I _haven't_, because what I'm about to do is suggest a radical divergence from Mass Effect canon. Granted, the effects won't really be felt until the events of Mass Effect 3, but who knows what it'll do to the Mass Effect universe I know.

"You're insane."

"Potentially," I agree, "but it's our best shot."

Miranda just stares at me as if daring me to argue with her. "Infiltrating the asari capital and getting into one of their most well-guarded, holiest sanctuaries to recover...what, exactly?"

"A prothean VI."

"You're kidding." Miranda repeats and shakes her head rapidly. "I mean, I've believed you so far, but...but this? You're telling me that the asari built their most sacred temple on top of an ancient prothean relic?"

Yup, that's basically what I'm saying. "Think about it. the asari are part of this cycle, just like everyone else. The turians, the salarians, hell, even the krogan. Now then, how did they manage to advance technologically that much faster than everyone else? Even right now, they're technologically and even evolutionarily more advanced than any other Citadel race. They may not have the sheer size of the turian fleet, but every asari dreadnought is probably worth three turian ships. How did the asari become the first to unlock the relays? How did the asari make the jump from an industrial civilization to an interstellar one in...decades, instead of centuries? Check their historical records, you'll notice there's a sudden increase in advanced tech a couple thousand years back."

"We did it," Miranda counters. "Humanity developed interstellar travel and colonized dozens of worlds within a decade of..."

I can see the realization dawning on her. "Within a decade of discovering the prothean data cache on Mars," I finish for her. "Yup."

"Oh my God...the asari must have had centuries to study the data..." it's the first time I've seen Miranda awed, and it's actually...wow.

"Try millennia. They found that thing pretty much day one."

"No wonder they are so advanced..."

"Pretty much."

"You're dead serious about this, aren't you?" Miranda looks at me in exasperation.

"Yep."

She gets up from the table and starts pacing around the room. "Do you have _any_ idea what kind of _incident_ this could cause? If our operatives get caught? If the asari government even gets _wind_ of this?"

"This coming from the people who infiltrated the Migrant Fleet and the only reason the quarians know about it is because you like to rub their faces in it," I reply evenly, crossing my arms. It's a long shot, I know, but right now, that's the only way I can think of for us to find the Mu Relay and get a leg up on the Reapers.

"That operation took _months_ to plan and execute, we had a very specific objective, and it was _not_ an extraction and recovery mission!" Miranda counters. Holy crap, she's really agitated. Wonder what got her all worked up, all of a sudden? This really isn't like her.

I hold up my hands to placate her, and she slows down a little bit, at least. "Look, Miranda, it's not like the VI core is big. All we need is to activate it, ask it one question, and get the hell out of there."

"Oh, is that it?" Miranda asks sarcastically. "Walk right into the middle of an asari fortress where their scientists have been studying a prothean relic for who knows how long, simply activate it, and walk back out?"

"Didn't say it was going to be _easy_..." I sigh and stand up, grabbing Miranda to stop her from wearing a hole into her carpet, and sit her down. "Look, it's our best shot. Because trust me, the information that VI can give us, it'll help a lot in the long run."

There's no way I'm telling her about the Catalyst and the Crucible yet, but even so, a fully-functional prothean VI, well...it's not hard to imagine what that would do for humanity's progress.

"You're suggesting we _steal_ it from the asari?" It didn't seem possible, but Miranda sounds even _more_ incredulous. I guess I did phrase that a little oddly.

"No, not steal. Just...recover information from it. We extract the information we need, and leave the rest to the asari, no harm, no foul." Of course, it isn't going to be quite _that_ easy, considering how much damage activating the beacon caused in the game...but the asari researchers working on the damn thing must have an access point somewhere. Unless they fancy redecorating the place every time they want to look something up.

Miranda looks over at me, and there's a really strange look in her eyes. "What kind of information?"

"Other than the Mu Relay and any hints for what Saren's ultimate plan is?" At her nod, I pause, wondering if there's any merit in hiding it. But no, Miranda needs to know. If we're going to get our hands on Vendetta, then she'll have to know what information we can use...and what can never see the light of day. Or at least Tim's grubby hands.

And then the world goes black and white again. The disorientation only lasts for a second this time, as I'm starting to get used to his constant interruptions. Although, I haven't seen him in a while, so I guess he's overdue for a visit. Man, for someone who has the entirety of the cosmos to play with, he sure seems interested in our puny human lives.

Almost like we're his pet project, or something.

"What's up, Q?" I ask flippantly, leaning against the desk next to Miranda's still form. It's actually really weird to see someone else frozen in time like this from up close. Her hair's even stilled mid-flow from the motion she started, and hanging in the air mid-nod.

The omnipotent being with a penchant for Star Trek command uniforms looks as nonchalant as ever as he turns around in the middle of the room, stepping out of the bright flash of light that deposited him here. This time he's in one of the newer uniform styles; the post-Dominion War uniforms with the colored turtlenecks and the grey-shouldered uniform jackets. Complete with red command shirt and admiral's pips.

"An interesting choice you made there," Q says as he looks me over curiously.

I just shrug and sit on the desk, dangling my feet off the ground. It's weird, I'm almost getting used to him randomly popping in and being like, almost a commentator at an event, or something. "Figured the same old would get boring for you. Entertained yet?"

"Entertained?" Q smirks that annoying little grin of his. "Oh, yes. And very curious. You do realize that you are about perpetuate a major change in the timeline of this universe...are you not concerned about the repercussions?"

"You mean, I'm about to do something utterly crazy, and you want to know if I've still got all my marbles?" The chuckle that follows that question isn't entirely humorless. I wonder what the expression on Q's face will be if I can actually surprise him with my plan.

"In not as many words, yes."

"The way I see it, it's the only thing I _can_ do."

Q seems genuinely surprised by that. "Really? Is that what you believe?"

"Yup." I actually had a lot of time to think this over. And yes, I _know_ this is crazy, but it's just crazy enough that it might work.

"Please, enlighten me."

"I'm done playing along with the Reapers," I begin, and surprisingly, I actually have Q's undivided attention. "I don't know if _Sovereign_ is trying to indoctrinate me, and whether he's succeeding or not. But I'll be damned if I don't do as much damage as I can before...well, before anything happens to me. The way I see it, no matter what I do, I'm just another grunt on Shepard's crew."

And while that's fine and great and all, I'm not Dylan, or Art, or any of the others. "And that's great and all," I continue, looking around the room and finally settling on Miranda, "it's great, it really is. I can make a difference on the missions, I think. I hope. But in the end, I'm just another squadmember for her. One more grunt isn't going to win this war. One more _Shepard_ might, but not just another grunt."

"So what is your plan, then? I assume you do have one?"

"Why're you so interested in what I'm doing, anyway, Q?" I reply. You'd figure he'd have better things to do. Or, being near omnipotent, that he wouldn't really care.

"As I've said before, the Continuum has...a few things to observe and learn from you humans. I'm merely trying to...explain and facilitate understanding."

"I figured you knew what I was going to do already. Didn't you once say humans were predictable?"

Q looks mildly abashed at that. Hey, look at that, I managed to rebuff Q! "There have been...certain individuals that have proven that particular assumption incorrect."

"Right. So what exactly do you want from _me_, Q? And don't give me this cryptic _do your best_ bullshit." Uncrossing my arms, I stride over to where he's standing. Fortunately, he's not much taller than me, so I don't have to actually look _up_ at him.

"I'm afraid I can't tell you," he says cheekily, and I sigh and back down, trudging back to the table. _Of course_ he can't tell me, and being who he is, there's not a damn thing I can do about it but play along.

"You know, Q, that's getting really old. I mean, come _on_, you're fucking with my life here, don't I at least deserve to know what the grand scheme of things is?"

He shrugs, and there's a hint of an apology in his posture, but it's gone almost as quickly as it appeared. "So, your plan?" he changes the topic again.

Fine, I'll play ball, then. For now. "Right now, my biggest weapon is that I know what Saren and the Reapers are up to. I know what they're planning, what they're going to do, and what we're going to do in return. I know what works and what doesn't. It's time to leverage that advantage. So we're going after the damn VI on Thessia, and we're going to grab all the information on the Reapers that we can. And when the Collectors and the Reapers come...we'll be ready."

"That is a very dangerous game you are playing. You have no idea what kinds of changes your actions are going to cause," Q cautions as he leans back against the wall. "Are you certain you want to do this?"

"What's my alternative?" I shoot back, "sit back and play through the games as they were? Try and change little things here and there? Sure, I can do that, but it's not going to win us this war, Q." I brush my way past him to get to the fridge and grab myself a drink. Some kind of weird carbonated soda. Not quite Pepsi, not quite Cola, but something along those lines. Huh, seems that survives even into the 22nd century.

"What's wrong with going with the flow? You know what is going to happen, why not make use of it? If you change the course of events now, your entire foreknowledge will be useless." He looks genuinely confused as he follows me out into the kitchen.

And that's where he's wrong. "Not entirely useless," I correct him with a grin. "Sure, things will play out differently. But their first incursion will be the same. It'll be our _response_ that's different. There's no way in hell I'm letting the Reapers slag Earth and Thessia and Palaven, not if I can help it."

"Admirable, if reckless," Q concedes. "And then how will you go into battle, not knowing what is going to happen? How exactly are you planning to survive?"

Now _that_'s a good question, because so far, I've pretty much been relying on sort of knowing what's going to happen to stay one step ahead of death. But there's only one real answer to that.

"Simple," I tell him. "I follow Shepard."

He actually chuckles at that. "Follow Shepard, indeed."

"Can't do it alone, though." I look through the doorway at Miranda's still form. "Not alone."

"Are you certain she will make the right decisions when the time comes? Do you think she'll even support such a crazy endeavour?"

"She will."

Q arches an eyebrow, looking suspiciously like Spock. "How do you know?"

I drop the empty bottle into the recycler and head back to Miranda's office. "Because I trust her, Q. Because I trust her."

And just like that, he's gone and the world is back in color. Miranda finishes nodding her head and looks at me. "Yes, aside from that. There has to be a reason you're so keen on us getting that VI. What is it?"

It takes me a moment to remember where we were in our conversation before Q popped in. Oh, right, she was asking me what information could be worth the risk of infiltrating Thessia. So...how about this. "Proof. Proof that'll convince every skeptic, every politician, every goddamn soldier that the threat is real. Proof that'll let us rally our forces before it's too late. And everything the protheans ever had on fighting the Reapers."

Miranda is silent for a long moment, and I can tell she's weighing her options. It's up to her now, because I'm fresh out of little nudges. If she says no...well, I guess we can always follow Saren, but I'd rather nip him at the bud. Not to mention nip the other goddamn Reapers at the bud before they start invading the galaxy.

Finally, she looks up at me, a grim expression on her face. "This isn't over with just Saren, is it?"

"No. No, it's not."


	20. Chapter 20

**Author's Note:** Remember to check on chapter 19 that was replaced :P For your reading pleasure, two for the price of one! I apologize for the confusion, is being slow as hell, and won't update chapter 19. So for those looking for it, it'll be there soon...hopefully...

**Chapter Twenty**

"What do you _mean_, you're taking leave from my ship?" Shepard asks me incredulously as I'm standing in her office. Technically, we're still on liberty, but this is _Shepard_. The woman's a workaholic if I ever saw one, even if she won't admit that she'll do it just to catch up on paperwork.

I hand her the fake orders Miranda gave me. That was a hell of an argument with her, convincing her to let me tag along. In the end, though, she relented, seeing as I'm the one who can identify what the prothean VI is and how to activate it. That must've been an interesting conversation she had with Tim to get that mission approved. "SpecOps has recalled me for a covert operation. You know that lack of support from the Council? With any luck, by the time I get back, you'll have your support. Ships, men, tech, everything you need to fight the Reapers."

"You're making it sound like we'll have to fight a war."

"Considering the fact that these are potentially the Reapers who wiped out the entire prothean civilization, I'd say that's a distinct possibility, Commander. We don't know much about the protheans, but they controlled a large part of the known galaxy. Something that can wipe _them_ out on a timescale of something like a couple of decades to a century, I'd say we'd be in for a hell of a war if they ever come knocking." Although I'm not about to flat out tell her that they _will_, I'm sure she can infer that much.

Shepard rubs her forehead and puts down the datapad without even looking at it. "You're putting me in a difficult situation, Grayson," she says after a brief pause. "I'm already a squad member down, that leaves me dangerously short-handed for ground operations."

"I understand, Commander, but this has to be done."

"You know, I could do with a short squad if we were just going on patrol, but we're not. I need my squad together, Grayson."

Wait, what? "But...I thought-"

"Command recalled us. They intercepted a distress call from the _Hawking_. We're going to Feros."

"Right now?"

"Right now," she confirms.

Well...shit. "I'm sorry, Commander."

"Orders, huh?" Shepard looks up at me. "Your idea, or your superior's?"

"You could say I'm partially at fault," I admit easily.

"Why does that not surprise me?" She hands back the orders to me. "How long do you think this assignment will take?"

"Probably longer than it'll take you to get to Feros and back."

"All right." Shepard looks at me and leans back in her chair. "I'm not even going to ask where you're going. And since these orders come from above my clearance, I can't do anything about them. Why now, though?"

"Because Saren's vulnerable. We deprived him of his prize on Noveria, and we need to find the Mu Relay before him. Whatever he's got planned, he believes that relay is the key to his plans, and if we can cut him off, then he's done for." It's part of the real reason; but unlike with Miranda, I don't think Shepard's ready to know about the full extent of the Reaper threat yet. Not yet, not now. Right now, for her, it's this shadowy cloud looming over our heads that's almost unreal, intangible. Right now, she's focused on Saren.

"And you think you know where it is?" she asks skeptically.

"No. But I think we know how we can find it."

"And once you do?"

"Once we find it...we put a stop to Saren and the Reapers."

Shepard just looks at me, almost as if considering whether I should be in the psych ward along with Ashley, but finally just shakes her head in exasperation. "I hope you know what you're doing, Grayson."

"So do I, Commander. So do I."

And Q be damned, this has _got_ to work, or I just screwed up the Mass Effect timeline over for nothing. And I _still_ haven't got a plan for preventing Tim from getting...well, basically a prothean data archive for himself.

Shepard stands, effectively dismissing me. "The _Normandy_ is scheduled to return to the Citadel after Feros and three subsequent deployments near the Attican Traverse. If you're done playing spy, you're welcome to come back aboard then."

"Thank you, Commander." I head for the door. My bags are already packed and sitting on my bunk - not like I had much to pack, just my armor, really, since I took my pistol.

"Oh, and Grayson?" she adds, "good luck."

My reply is cut off by the door closing behind me, and I pause for a second as the reality of what I'm about to do finally hits me. The _Normandy_ is about to head for Feros. All right, the mission's not too bad in and of itself, and that bit with ExoGeni and the Thorian could get pretty ugly, but if things go according to script then no one is in any kind of mortal danger there.

If everything goes according to script. If Therum and Noveria are any indication, then there's a good chance that they won't. And while I have every confidence in Shepard and her squad, well...it's weird. It's only been two weeks and two missions, but these people, they're my friends. In some ways, they're more than friends, because when you're down there on the ground, you have to trust them with your life, and they trust you. And part of me feels like I'm abandoning them, even though there's no guarantee I'd actually be on the Feros ground team.

And then, of course, there's the whole fact that I'm about to rewrite a good portion of Mass Effect 3, and who knows how much in-between. But I'm fine with that. I'm done playing by the Reapers' - and, by extension, by the Catalyst's - rules.

But still...breaking and entering into one of the asari's most holy sanctums on their capital seemed much easier when it was a vague idea floating around my head. I have no idea how Miranda managed to arrange passage for us to Thessia on such short notice, not to mention our cover identities, but I'm guessing that the Festival of the Goddess has something to do with it. Apparently, that's a big event with lots of partying going on, and everyone, even off-worlders, are welcome.

"There you are!" Tali's voice interrupts my thoughts as she walks down the stairs from Deck One, Garrus in tow.

I give them a brief wave and push off from the wall. "Hey, Tali. Vakarian."

"Did you hear?" she asks, "we've been recalled."

"Yeah, Shepard just told me. You're going to Feros, after all."

Garrus actually picks up on that. "You're not coming with us?" he asks.

"Got recalled by my superiors in SpecOps. They've got something they want me to do. I'll be back, though."

"But I thought you were assigned to the _Normandy_?" Tali asks.

A nonchalant shrug belies the fact that I _totally_ had something to do with it. "Yeah, well, you know how it goes. With any luck, I'll be done before you get back from Feros, and the next time the ship drops by the Citadel, you can come pick me up."

"Just make sure we don't have to pick you up from whatever mess you got yourself into this time, Grayson," Garrus asks with a wide, toothy expression that I've learned to read as a turian grin.

I shoot him a grin right back. "Yeah, well, if I need rescuing, I'd much rather it be someone nicer to look at, Vakarian. But yeah, hopefully this'll be an easy job, in, out, quick and smooth." _Yeah, right_, I add quietly to myself. Knowing my luck, it's probably going straight to hell.

"Besides," I add, turning to Tali, "that just means you finally get to go. Go have some fun down on that planet, try not to get eaten, and blow some shit up for me, all right?"

The quarian giggles at that and cocks her head. "Wait...get eaten? Are planetary species often carnivorous?"

"The fauna in this case may be," I tell her, hoping that at least I can drop a hint to be careful around plants especially down on Feros.

Garrus shudders and leans against the wall, his arms crossed in that pose that is just so quintessentially him from the games. "I've read up on the planet. High humidity, high temperatures, and generally a lot of water content in the soil. It's just so..."

"Wet?" I ask him cheerfully, to which he shoots me a dirty look. "Look on the bright side, as long as all the moisture stays in the air, odds are you won't have to swim anywhere."

Tali just giggles at that, but Garrus looks indignant - although it's all in good humor, I can tell from the way he's working his mandibles. "You know," the C-Sec officer says, "I was referring more to the potential of breeding harmful fungi literally everywhere. The air, the soil, habitats, food stores. Doesn't strike me as a good place for a colony."

"I think the colony is there to support the corporate offices that are there," I respond, "from what I hear, ExoGeni has set up a couple of facilities there, and is providing the colonists with power, fresh water, and supplies in case of shortages in exchange for habitats and recreational areas for their employees."

Of course, the reality is much more sinister than that, but that's for them to find out. It's not something I should know about, especially not right now.

"Well," Tali says, touching my shoulder with her three-fingered hand, "take care of yourself, all right? I'll make sure to keep Adams busy so he won't notice your absence down in engineering. _Keelah se'lai_, Patrick."

Man, this is harder than I thought it would be, even though I'm sure I'll see them again in a couple of weeks. I take her hand, and touch it to my forehead, then hers in a quarian goodbye. "_Keelah se'lai_, Tali'Zorah nar Rayya."

Garrus then extends his hand for me to shake in a surprisingly human manner. "Good luck. Make sure you come back in one piece, this ship needs at least one other person who isn't completely insane," he says gruffly.

T

The transport isn't quite as well-engineered as the _Normandy_, and I can hear and feel the vibrations of the drive core on the deck plating under my feet. Despite that, I'm dozing, only half awake while we're waiting to arrive at Thessia's main spaceport. It's a twenty-eight hour flight, what do you expect me to do on this cramped passenger ship? Granted, it's not nearly as bad as an airplane flight from, say, Los Angeles to Melbourne, but hell, this tin can isn't much roomier to begin with.

Well, I guess it's about as roomy as a train, which is better than an airplane. Marginally, anyway, but at least you're not stacked on top of other passengers. Next to me, Miranda's sitting up, wide awake, her eyes darting about nervously. It's strange to see her usually composed manner break down so completely from just a shuttle ride. I crack my eyes open and glance over at her from the corner of my eyes. Although, if I were to be entirely honest, on the outside she's about as calm as it gets. But there's little things, signs that you pick up on when you live and work with someone for months on end.

Once again, she has performed a freaking miracle and gotten us into Thessia, and only took half a week to do so. Her normally jet-black hair is dyed a dark blonde, and her uniform jumpsuits have been replaced by a smart casual pantsuit. As for me? I'm wearing slacks and a shirt covered with a silk vest. I was _supposed_ to wear a jacket over it, but that just reminded me too much of Tim's style for me to be comfortable, so the jacket got vetoed and replaced with the vest.

The most noticeable aspect of our covers, though, is not exactly visible on first inspection, but rather encoded on our ID chips. During the Festival of the Goddess, the asari celebrate the history and their faith in the goddesses that have been part of their culture for millennia. One of these is the goddess of fortune, prophecy, and fate - Athame. She's now the primary asari goddess, and every other deity has somehow gotten rolled up with her at one point in time or another.

Normally, her temple in the asari capital is closed to off-worlders and even asari, and the only people allowed inside are her priestesses and the most influential and oldest of matriarchs. But during the Festival, as a celebration to her, it's open to the public. Something like guided tours, if I understood that flyer Miranda handed me correctly. Whatever it is, turns out that it's open, and we're going there.

That's the good news.

The bad news is that in order to get into the inner sanctum of the temple, where the prothean VI interface is located, you have to have special permission from the order of priestesses, and permission is only granted during the Festival for specific occasions.

The most common occasion? A ritualistic fortune telling for a lover's fate, usually sought by asari and non-asari couples to determine if they'll be happy in their...well, marriage, or whatever it is they go through. Figures that the asari, the proverbial consorts of the galaxy, would have something like a sensual-erotic fortune telling of your future love-life. Judging by their emphatic abilities, though, it's actually entirely possible that it's not complete hokum.

And that's why Miranda and I are sitting on a shuttle, sharing a single suite, posing as an engaged couple seeking the blessing of the goddess Athame for our upcoming nuptials.

How did Miranda say it again? _Considering our time-frame, that was the best I could do_. I'm sure it was, but neither of us is entirely comfortable with that. I mean, come on, pretending to be someone's boyfriend? Hell, that didn't even work for Leonard very well. I mean, it's one thing to get into a cover identity, and most covers are generated so that you can slip into them with a minimum of fuss and danger of slipping up - something familiar, something you're used to.

This whole couple thing? That's new for both Miranda _and_ me. Especially with the fact that we're about to land on a planet populated by a couple billion empathic and telepathic people. It's like freaking landing on Betazed, only without the naked chicks.

Okay, not going there.

"You all right?" I ask her, cracking an eye open to look over.

"I'm fine." She sighs, and I can feel her leaning back into her seat. "Are you sure about this?" she then asks quietly.

"About the temple?"

"Yes."

Now, how do I put this..."I think that it's the best shot we have at securing our future," I tell her. Man, I suck at all this code-speak.

"You really think it will help?"

"I know it will." That, at least, is easy for me to say.

She falls silent, but I can tell she's thinking it over. It was a hell of a gamble, and a hell of a lot to ask of her, I've got no illusions about that. But the prize...if everything goes right, then the prize will have been worth it.

But Miranda doesn't know that. She doesn't know the extent of what this could do for us, what it could do to our future efforts to fight the Reapers. If we pull this off, she'll have given the galaxy a hell of a fighting chance. And the fact that she went ahead and trusted me enough to go along with my harebrained idea - and I'm sure it must've sounded absolutely mind-boggingly insane to her - is...well, really, really humbling.

I have no idea when she started putting that kind of trust in me, and frankly, it scares me a bit. It scares me, because Miranda's changing. She's not the Ice Queen I remember from the games anymore, not entirely. It may sound selfish, but she's not entirely predictable anymore. She's...she's almost like she was with her sister. More than that, that trust...it's going to make it hard for her to tell if I've been compromised by the Reapers or not. Ever since _Sovereign_'s little visit, I haven't been able to get the likelyhood of that out of my head.

That's why I've hidden a datacard for her with detailed instructions on how to activate the prothean VI and the information she should extract from it, just in case. Just in case it turns out that I've led the Reapers right to this place. But if it comes down to it, I'm hoping that she'll pull the trigger. And if it does come to that, then she'll at least have a record of everything I know about the Reaper invasion that is to come, plus the archived data from Vendetta, if she manages to recover it.

Bah, that's enough of those depressing thoughts. A glance out the window confirms that Thessia is looming ever closer, and I nudge her. "We're almost there," I mutter.

Minutes later, the announcement comes through that we're preparing for re-entry, and one hell of a bumpy shuttle ride later, we're on solid ground in the asari capital on Thessia. It's just like it was in Mass Effect 3, before the Reapers got to it. Towering skyscrapers glittering in the sunlight, spaced apart enough to reveal lush fields in between an urban landscape that is industrialized and yet natural at the same time.

It's only the third day of the two-week long Festival, but it's nearing sundown and we're both pretty beat from the flight. Unsurprisingly, though the taxi stands at the spaceport are crowded beyond belief, and there's no rentals left. It's amazing how much like an actual vacation this is, even down to Miranda hissing in vexation at our inability to procure transportation to our hotel. That's the downside to a low-profile cover as a tourist. You don't get all the niceties like reserved vehicles and staff, and all that.

A glint catches my interest from one of the multitude of taxi platforms, though, and an idea forms in my head. I pat Miranda on the shoulder to get her attention.

"Be right back," I tell her, leaving her with our suitcases without explaining further. Pushing my way through the crowd isn't actually as difficult as it looks. While the scene - blue skin and tentacle-hair aside - might've been straight from Tokyo's Narita or Seoul's Incheon airports, the asari and the other tourists are actually quite courteous and make room for you if they happen to see you.

Finally, I get to the stand and flag down who I think is the owner. A scarred krogan, of all people, comes over and waves excitedly. "You looking for a ride?" he asks gruffly. It's really weird to see a krogan this animated, because he's grinning widely and waving around with his arms as he talks, but at least he looks like he loves his job. "I've got the finest bikes this side of Thessia. Quiet or loud, authentically synthesized internal combustion engine noises, and tuned to run like a volus towards a good business deal!"

"You got any two-seaters?" I ask him. Man, I like this guy. I don't know what it is about him, but just seeing a jovial krogan with that wide, toothy smile? That alone is priceless.

"You bet!" He does this weird krogan fistpump thing where he slams his fists together and waddles off. Yeah, _waddles_. Because his leg armor seems unaturally stiff, but he scrambles around, waving at me to follow him as he makes his way through rows of hoverbikes. "There," he says, pointing at the last row. "Two-seat passenger bikes. Want a sidepod, or cargo rig?"

"That'd be good, yeah."

"Great! Not a lot of people ride one these days. They're all about those fancy skycars and aeroshuttles and stuff," the krogan says as he picks his way through the selection of bikes. "Nothing like feeling the air on your face, if you ask me. Go fast and _feel_ yourself go fast, I say."

"Definitely." I've never been a motorcycle person, myself, mostly because I never got around to getting my cycle license and a car was just that much more practical, but I've always loved driving with my windows down or in open-topped convertibles. "I know a guy who used to build and race these for a living. He's retired now, though."

"Really?" the krogan looks over his shoulder and grins at me. "Used to race them, myself. How's this one?" he points at a sleek bike with two sidepods - one for a passenger, and one for cargo, with a second seat behind the driver.

"Perfect." I can't help myself - hey, I'm an engineer, what do you expect? - and run my hand over the sleek lines of the bike and lean down to inspect the engine block. "What's she running?"

"This one's running a turian-manufactured _Kwervy-Zen_ Mark V drive core. Gets up to speed like you wouldn't believe, and can outrun most things on the planet," he replies easily, rattling off a set of numbers that I assume are power and top speed ratings, but without my omni-tool to convert them into units I can actually understand, they mean basically nothing to me. Judging from his excited face, though, I'm sure the bike's pretty dang fast.

"Cool. I'll take it. How much you asking for a week's rental?"

"Four hundred. Special, for the festival."

"Done." I hand him my credit chip that Miranda supplied me with and watch him run it. "So, you said you used to race these?"

"Yeah. Was one of the best damn racers on the pro circuit out here," he replies with a wide grin. "Did all the mods and tuning myself."

Huh...a krogan racing on Thessia? "How'd you end up racing here, though? I mean, asari space and all."

"Look around you," he gestures with his free hand. "The weather's perfect all year around. Don't have to do much to weather proof the bikes, and you can race any time of year."

"Ah."

"All right, you're all set. I'll get it moved over to the pad."

"Great. Let me get my...fiancee." Wow, it feels weird to say that, even if it's just an act. The krogan just grins and nods at me, then shuffles off.

Getting back to Miranda is about as easy as it was getting out to the rental place. She's already got a questioning eyebrow arched, but I actually manage to preempt her question with my answer.

"I got us a ride."

"Okay."

"Come on. It's right over there." I take one of the suitcases from her, and the two of us make a beeline back for the krogan's shop. When Miranda sees it her jaw drops and her eyes widen, before she narrows them and glares at me.

"Yup," I say once again before she can speak up, "I got us a bike. Don't worry, it's a two-seater and has room for cargo."

"A _bike_?" Miranda asks skeptically.

"Hey, a ride's a ride. Besides," I tell her with a grin, looking over where my new krogan friend is waving at us excitedly, "how could you possibly resist him?"

Miranda just stares at the krogan's genuinely happy expression for a bit, then smiles - a real, honest smile from her. "All right, I suppose it'll do."

"Thought you'd see it my way." We head over to him, and he thumps me on the shoulder - hard, but friendly - and hands me the keys.

"There you go, she's all yours. Hope you stop by again soon!"

As we head over to the bike, though, once we've set in all the luggage and secure it, Miranda walks up to me and snatches the keys out of my hand, leaving me standing there, blinking in confusion in her wake.

"You coming, or what?" she asks over her shoulder as she swings one leg over the seat and tosses her hair around coquettishly. Behind me, the krogan roars in laughter, and claps me on the shoulder.

"She's a keeper, that mate of yours," he says as he ambles away.

And you know what? Looking at Miranda, on that bike, highlighted against the skyline, I can't help but think that, with everything we've been through and everything that's to come, there's no one else I'd rather have with me.

T

"The temple is open to the public tomorrow," Miranda says, looking over something on her terminal in our hotel room.

"That so?"

She looks over at me, and the narrowed stare she shoots my way tells me she's annoyed. "This was your idea, the least you could do is pay attention."

I should, I guess, but there's other things on my mind as I pick around my suitcase. "I am. But there's nothing we can do until then. And even so, our appointment isn't till two days from now."

"You're not concerned about anything at all?"

The tone in her voice makes it abundantly clear that she disapproves. But that's where she's wrong. Oh, I'm worried, all right. I'm worried about all sorts of shit. I'm worried about this going south and ending up making things worse. I'm worried about the wrong information ending up in Tim's hands, or, even worse, playing right into the _Reapers_'s hands. I'm worried about whether I'm being indoctrinated without noticing, because if there's one thing the Reapers are good at, it's bloody mind games.

So yes, I'm _concerned_. But it won't do me any good to not hold it together right now, because things are in motion, and all I can do is hope they work out for the best. But there's a little voice in the back of my head that's screaming at me _so tell her that_. And perhaps I should. Ever since _Sovereign_'s little visit - ever since I got off the _Normandy_, actually, I think I've been a little nonchalant about it all. Maybe it's because I'm starting to accept that I'm stuck here and that there's nothing else I can do about it.

Or perhaps it's the fact that I finally made a conscious choice to say the hell with it, I'm throwing everything and the kitchen sink at the Reapers. I don't know. It's just...shaking off the scare with _Sovereign_ talking in my head seems easier when you just pretend nothing happened, you know?

So I open my mouth, but nothing seems to want to come out. Fortunately, Miranda knows me well enough to give me the time to collect my thoughts. "I am," I finally tell her, quietly.

"To be perfectly honest?" I continue, as she seems perfectly content to let me talk, "I'm terrified. I'm scared shitless, because what Saren's doing is just the tip of the iceberg. What happened to the protheans, there's a good chance it'll happen to us, and for some ungodly reason, next to Shepard, I'm the one who knows about this shit. I mean, come _on_. There's Shepard, which is fine and dandy, and then there's _me._"

A self-deprecating laugh escapes my throat - I've never really had much self-confidence, but what I had was grounded in the fact that I knew things, and that I could do things. But here, on a galactic scale, one screw-up is...well, a screw-up on a galactic scale. "I _think_ I know what I'm doing. I've got plans, vague ideas, based on what I know is coming. But I have no guarantee that it'll make things better. And the worst part is, I have no idea if what I'm doing is entirely my own idea or not. I'm terrified of making a mistake and having people die because of it. Of having _you_ die because I fucked up. You know why I really wanted to come along?"

She nods, and I toss her the datacard. "I wanted to come along so you could shoot me if there's even a _sign_ of me being influenced by the Reapers. So you can keep an eye on me. If you end up having to, look at the contents of that. It's everything I know. Including that long story that I promised you about where I came from."

"This-"

"It's the unabridged truth, as impossible as it'll sound if you read it."

Miranda looks at the card, then back at me. Very slowly, deliberately, she reaches out and places it back in my hand, closing my fingers around it. "I won't be needing it, because I'm not going to have to shoot you. And besides, I'd much rather hear it from you when this is all over."

"You can't guarantee that, Miranda."

"No, I can't," she concedes, her hand still on mine. "But the last couple of months that I've known you, there's one thing I've learned about you. You're one _stubborn_ son of a bitch. Once you put your mind to it, it's about has difficult to move you as the _Destiny Ascension_. So no, I can't guarantee that we'll make it, but I have faith that whatever the Reapers throws at you to try and turn you, you'll be able to overcome. You've made it this far, after all."

"I really wish I shared your optimism there."

Miranda smirks back at me and gets up from her chair. "I'll just have to believe for both of us, then."

As she saunters out of the room, yet again I wonder what the hell is happening to the Mass Effect universe I used to know. I almost wish Q would drop in and tell me what's going on.

"You called?"

I almost jump at his sudden appearance perching on the bed next to me. "Gah! Don't do that, you almost gave me a heart attack!"

"Oh, don't worry so much, those are an easy fix these days."

"What?" I'm confused.

"Heart attacks. Do try and keep up, after all, you're the one who wished for my presence."

Typical, insufferable Q. Yet I can't really bring myself to be too annoyed, because I have questions that I need answered. "What's going on, Q?" I ask him, "With Miranda, and...and _Sovereign_, and everything else in this goddamn universe?"

"It's so simple, I'm surprised you haven't thought of it, even with your admittedly limited mental capacity." It sure _sounds_ condescending, but there's not actual bite behind his words. He's just saying them as if they were facts, which, to him, I guess they are. "Your presence in this universe has...caused ripples, to use an analogy you humans are so fond of. It has changed the course of events. Just by your mere presence. Your actions have just cemented those changes."

"_Sovereign_ mentioned something like that. He said my presence here wasn't anticipated, that I wasn't supposed to be here."

"The Reaper knows that you are not a part of this universe. However, there is little he can do about it. He knows, but cannot act upon that knowledge." He's looking positively smug at that.

"Except try and brainwash me, or indoctrinate me, or something."

Q frowns at me, tsking in disapproval. "Yes, he could try. But you, of all people, know that the Reapers' power isn't absolute. In the end, they can't force you to do things. They can only suggest and cloud your vision."

"Which is good enough. I mean, look at the people they indoctrinate, they're causing plenty of havoc."

"Perhaps you should have a little of what your friend there has so much of." Q tilts his head in the direction of the door.

"And what's that?"

"Faith."

Faith, huh? I'm guessing what my friends back home kept telling me is finally coming full circle. I've never been religious, or spiritual, never really had anything to believe in. Science was it - the archetypal agnostic, that's me. "But sometimes," I tell Q, "faith isn't enough."

"For her, it seems to be." And perhaps for the first time I've ever seen, Q's not being cryptic, or roundabout in his answer. "If there is one thing I have learned about humans...it's the fact that they always seem to underestimate what they can accomplish when they have a reason to truly believe."

And then he's gone.


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter Twenty-One**

The last time I saw the Temple of Athame - on a monitor, granted - was when the planet was being overrun by Reapers and the building was being shredded by a Cerberus gunship. Needless to say, it's actually in a lot better condition right now. The Festival of the Goddess actually turned out to be a planet-wide party, with parades, exhibition dances, demonstrations of asari culture, and pretty much everything else you'd expect from a planet that's throwing a giant par-tay.

The tour guide is walking way in front of us, explaining about some artifact and its relevance to asari culture, but I've pretty much tuned him out as I've got my eyes on the main chamber in the back of the temple grounds where I know the main accesspoint to Vendetta's VI core is. The tour's finally over, leaving me and Miranda in the courtyard, surrounded by temple buildings and waiting for our priestess to meet us.

I spare a brief glance at her, sitting under a tree of some kind, looking for all the world like a woman merely enjoying the sun and the shade. And to be honest, after our discussion the night we arrived on Thessia, we haven't really talked about anything much. Just...little things. Small talk, mostly, about the weather, or the news. We've even gone out and watched a parade or two, and walked the city. If you can imagine a cross between...let's say, Coruscant, and the LA County Fair, you'd have a pretty good idea of what Thessia's like at the moment.

And much to my surprise...I've had fun. Just, like, hanging out with her, forgetting for a little bit that we're here to do something incredibly dangerous and incredibly stupid - stupidly dangerous, or dangerously stupid? I can't tell - and just slipping into our cover identities and enjoying our time till it's zero hour. I haven't enjoyed being around another person this much in...years, I guess. Not since I got out of college and our little group of friends kind of drifted apart.

Thessia is actually a pretty idyllic place. The asari, for all their reputation as consorts and exotic dancers and all their wild exploits as young ones before reaching the matriarch age, are actually an incredibly calm and thoughtful people. There's centers for philosophy that would've been Plato's dream come true, and art, and religion. Oh, the religion. While Thessia maintains a monotheistic religion worshipping Athame, there's theologists from all corners of the galaxy that convene here to compare notes and talk about their differences and similarities, and about how wouldn't it be funny if your goddess turned out to be the same entity as my goddess?

And then I always remind myself of Samara and Morinth, and Samara's daughters. Now Morinth is one cold-blooded bitch, pardon my French. And the way the Ardat-Yakshi are treated...well, it's understandable that the asari fear them, but the rules are...a bit strict, at least in my opinion. Starting with the whole having to shoot them thing if they, willingly or unwillingly, leave the monastery.

"Valin Rayne and Sophia Cord?" the melodious voice of an asari priestess rings out across the courtyard.

The asari walks down the steps that lead down from the main building, and Miranda and I meet her half-way. She inclines her head in a bow in greeting. "Blessings of the Goddess be with you."

"And with you," Miranda responds easily.

"I understand you wish to take part in the _aerfwyn'mal_, the ceremoy of fate-in-eternity?"

Miranda nods, and hands over the forms that we spent a good part of the morning filling out. The asari priestess takes them and looks them over. "Is everything in order?"

"Yes, yes, it would appear that way," the asari says and turns around. "Please, follow me." The moment we step into the central chamber, Miranda looks around in curiousity, though I know she's looking for the VI accesspoint. Good luck finding it, the asari had millennia to hide it in plain sight.

Following our asari guide takes us all the way to the center of the room where the statue of Athame stands, ringed by shelves of scrolls and artifacts dedicated to her and the history she shares with the asari people. There's a little table and three seating cushions set up near the statue in the little open space around it. "Please, have a seat," the priestess says, taking her place and kneeling down at the head of the table, right underneath the statue.

We settle down across from each other. Miranda looks a little uneasy...not that I can fault her. The asari kind of creep me out, too, what with their biotic and emphatic abilities and that whole _embrace eternity_ thing. Most of them are so aloof that it's just hard to relate to them. "Relax," the priestess smiles at us, probably picking up on our nervousness. "It's a simple thing, really. It will not hurt."

Yeah, that's not exactly what I'm worried about.

Then there's the whole, _we're-not-really-tourists-but-here-to-steal-that-prothean-VI-under-your-feet_ thing.I give the asari the brightest smile I can muster. "Thank you. This is just new to us. First time on Thessia, and this..."

"I understand. Our traditions may seem overwhelming to many," the priestess inclines her head in acknowledgement. "Many of our rituals are complex and confusing, and deliberately so, so that we may never forget our past. Few of the asari follow the doctrines of the goddess anymore, but we who do are the keepers of the ancient faith. It is our burden and our honor to carry on the old traditions. But your task in this ceremony will be simple. Open your minds and your hearts, and let the Goddess guide your fate."

She begins a prayer in the asari language that I haven't got a hope of following - probably wouldn't, even with my omni-tool to translate - and Miranda and I take that as our cue to still. Whatever plan she has for getting her to leave us alone in here for a bit, I hope she puts it to work soon, otherwise we'll have to sneak back in here.

The priestess takes hold of each of our hands and closes her eyes. "Now," she says, "relax. Think of nothing. Empty your minds, and feel the embrace of the goddess."

Empty mind...empty mind...that's easier said than done for me. I mean, everyone I've ever met tells me I overthink things. Hell, sometimes I have trouble sleeping because I can't stop thinking. Fuck, now I'm thinking about not thinking. Okay, okay, calm down. There's a slight pressure, almost like having held your neck up for too long, and then suddenly, a rush. You know how when people say they see stars flash before their eyes? I'm seeing a whole bloody _universe_ expand before me. Stars, entire solar systems racing past, nebulae forming as I hurl through space, looking for something.

Stars flash past until they're motes of light against the darkness...the galaxy rushes and swirls around me as I drift past, up and out, away from it until the stars become invisible against the inky black of space, and the only specks of light are the galaxies. A cosmos within a cosmos. Stars within stars. Possibilites, change, fates.

And then I'm back in the temple, taking a deep breath and feeling like I awoke from a good night's rest. Across from me, Miranda's eyes open, and we lock stares for just a second, wondering if we each saw the same thing. The priestess starts chanting in the asari language.

"Your fates...I see much pain and conflict," she mutters, her voice surprisingly deep. If this were Stargate, I'd almost say she was a Goa'uld. "There is much uncertainty. Shifting, coalescing, possibilities. There is much faith and trust for a bond so young. You are..."

And suddenly, there's a rush of emotions that I know are not my own. Confusion, fear, trust, anger, faith. Irritation, and a hidden...regret? As quickly as it appeared, it's gone again, carried away in the wash of feelings, without leaving me time to wonder about it. I look over at Miranda, and then suddenly, everything I've felt in the last six months comes back in a giant, overwhelming whirlwind of emotions. There's the brief sensation of...I don't really know how to describe it. It's like the proverbial having another mind touch yours, it's really indescribable. Almost like you're schizophrenic, with the voices in your head, but without the panic that I imagine accompanies it.

There's a calming, soothing presence that allows me to experience this maelstrom of emotions, both Miranda's and mine, without being overwhelmed and being lost in them. For a single, glorious moment, it almost feels like I'm more than what I am, more than merely human, just flesh and bone, as if there's a transcendence to a higher plane, and I briefly wonder if this is what it's like to be Q. It's almost as if I'm looking down on thousands of years of galactic life with my own eyes, seeing incredible, inspiring things long since gone.

_Like a universe through the looking glass_, a little like the universe in the marble from Men in Black, looking down and seeing...everything. The sensation is just...wow. A warm tingling, almost as if you're in bed with someone's arms around you, comfortable, safe, secure.

And then that galaxy implodes on itself, leaving you alone, in the dark, with only your fears and doubts to keep you company. Not a pleasant feeling, but it doesn't last long, as we're ripped back to reality. Holy freaking crap, that was _intense_.

"Your path will not be easy," the asari intones. "I see trust broken and rebuilt. I see fear and death. I see...betrayal. I see perserverance rewarded. Friendship and animosity. Hatred and love." She blinks her eyes open and her voice returns to normal. "You...you two have...an interesting future together. Not...not what we usually see here. I sense...the goddess senses you are destined for great things, both of you."

I've been watching Miranda the entire time, and there's something off about her. I can't put my finger on it, but she flinched...actually _flinched_, however imperceptibly, at the mention of betrayal. Suddenly, the hairs on the back of my neck are standing straight up again, and I'm starting to question if this really was such a good idea, because suddenly I have a very bad feeling about this.

Just as we are about to get up, there's the sound of an explosion outside, and all of our eyes snap towards the temple entrance, where a giant fireball is currently rising into the air. Holy...fucking...One look over at Miranda, and my suspicion is confirmed. She did a great job acting surprised and terrified, but I've _seen_ Miranda genuinely surprised, and this is not it.

She knows. She _knows_ what this is all about. Fuck, _this_ is her plan? Cause havoc in the middle of the asari capital? What the fuck happened to diplomatic incidents and not getting caught? There's the sound of more explosions and gunfire, and people screaming in terror as an alert klaxon begins to ring. The priestess rises, pulling us to our feet. "Remain here," she says as she begins to glow blue with biotic energy. "You'll be safe here until we have cleared an evacuation route."

I just stare as she strolls out of the main gate as if going on a walk. After I'm sure she's out of audible range, I round on Miranda angrily. "This is your doing, isn't it?" I hiss.

"There was no other way. This was the best opportunity to gain access on such short notice." She doesn't look the least perturbed by the gunfight that's going on outside. Goddamn it all to hell, it sounds like the fucking OK Corral out there.

"No other way?" I ask her incredulously. "_No other way?_ What the _hell_ happened to not causing trouble, in and out without anyone ever knowing? This is your idea of _subtle_?"

"They'll never know it was us," she counters. "This will all have been an unfortunate attack by an isolationist terrorist group." That actually…makes sense. Considering the relatively volatile situation right now and the tensions that still linger after the First Contact War, it wouldn't be that far-fetched that there'd be terrorists striking at other races.

"I see…I'm guessing those guys out there aren't coming back, then?"

Miranda pauses for a moment, before replying quietly. "No."

Considering the fact that this is Cerberus, that really doesn't surprise me. They probably dug out some fanatical crazies and cut them loose, or something. But I still can't help but feel sorry for the fact that there's people dying out there because I suggested this, bot humans and asari. "All right," I mutter quietly, "let's make sure that this wasn't for nothing then."

Time to find us a prothean VI.

Granted, the asari probably aren't going to appreciate us demolishing the inside of their temple, but it can't really be helped. I don't know of any other way to activate Vendetta. There's so many artifacts in the room, and I don't really remember which ones Shepard touched to activate the beacon…nor do I really know _what_ exactly Shepard did to activate them. The context interaction menu isn't exactly detailed.

This isn't exactly Indiana Jones stuff…running around and touching random things doesn't actually work in real life, no matter what film and anime try to tell you. But looking at the display stands and, more precisely, _underneath_ the display stands reveals…

"Gotcha," I mumble to myself as I flip a catch under a stone tablet, activating the asari-constructed data stream and power relays to the beacon. One down, X to go. And of course, I forgot what X is. There's a deep rumble when I flip the second catch I find, and by the time I hit the third, and Miranda has found the fourth, the rumble has intensified until the stands break apart and beams of light illuminate the central statue of Athame. Something tells me we're getting closer.

"Nothing's happening," Miranda says after she checks the last of the items on display. "Are you sure this is it?"

Almost. There's got to be something I'm forgetting. Light beams and laser show? Check. Ominous rumbling of the ground? Check. Everything's focused on the statue of Athame now, right where Vendetta's holographic interface should appear in front…of…the…

The main plaque and artifact stand below the statue.

A quick brush around the underside of the plaque reveals that it's not actually metal…it's a metal coating on a holoplate interface. Bingo. Let's turn us on a prothean beacon. Hopefully it'll end better for me than it did for Shepard. The rumbling intensifies to an earth-shattering roar as the statue of Athame rocks on its foundation and piees of the ceiling come crashing down dramatically – seriously, the asari had millennia to design this, and the best they could come up with is a system that completely wrecks their cover structure every time the beacon is activated?

Then again, I guess the asari don't actually _activate_ the beacon the way Shepard did and the way I'm doing now. They probably figured out a fancy way of siphoning off its data streams and tapping right into it, but there's no way for us to do that right now.

The descriptive plaque dissolves to reveal a holographic interface, and as a shaft of light erupts from below the statue of Athame, the green light coalesces into the form of a prothean, his crested head and four eyes distinctly visible. He looks around the room for a second before his eyes settle on me. I'm vaguely aware of Miranda standing there in shell-shocked awe, her surprise and awe actually evident in her eyes as she comes face to face with the last remnant of an extinct species. But what draws me in is Vendetta's stare, something so…_living_, so piercing that it's hard to believe he is an inanimate, programmed virtual construct.

"No indoctrinated individuals within detection range. Safety protocols disengaged," Vendetta declares in monotone, before the hologram snaps into focus. "Welcome, young ones. I am _Vendetta_, an advanced virtual construct of Pashek Vran. Obtaining chronological marker. Timescale established. Post-prothean cycle confirmed. Reaper presence detected. Extinction terminus imminent. Extinction cycle in progress."

"Wait, extinction terminus? Cycle?" Miranda asks. "What are you talking about?"

Vendetta turns towards her. "The coming of the creatures my people refer to as the Reapers. In our time, excavations have uncovered the remnants of species and galactic population cycles preceeding ours. All have come to an abrupt end roughly every fifty-thousand years. When the Reapers entered galactic space, we determined that their arrival was the beginning of a termination cycle that culminates in the eradication of all sentient life capable of space flight."

"An extinction-level event on a galactic scale," I add. "The Reapers come in, wipe out everything, and then just leave."

Vendetta looks back at me, eyeing me for a curiously long moment. "Correct. When we determined that our countermeasures were ineffective and the war would be lost within the next fifty years of my creation, the core of our scientific and military leadership went into cryostasis in order to survive the destruction. Seeds for our resurgence were planted on worlds still within our control, in the hopes that our species would one day rise again." He looks around us at the temple, ignoring the gunfight outside. "It appears that your cycle has reached its apex. Extermination is imminent."

"Yeah, well, we're trying to prevent it from happening. There's still time."

Vendetta looks thoughtful for a moment. "Correct. If our sabotage of the Citadel remains in place, then the current extermination cycle can be slowed."

"Yeah, slowed is good, but we're kind of aiming for completely halted."

The prothean VI stares at me like I've grown a second head. Or maybe like I'm some delusional fool to be pitied. "It is too late to stop the current cycle. It is impossible to stop the Reapers completely at this stage considering galactic development."

"Never know if we don't try," I counter easily. Truth be told, I pretty much decided to ignore that doomsday attitude all protheans seem to share. It's probably understandable, considering what they went through, but _damn_, would it kill them to think a little positively? I mean, between Javik, Vendetta, and the VI on Ilos, you'd think that there's no saving the galaxy, _ever_.

"An admirable sentiment. At the very least, your legacy will help the galaxy's progeny to prepare for their own cycle." Vendetta looks at the main gate and then back at us. "Hostile incursion detected outside. No indoctrinated individuzls detected. What is the cause of the disturbance?"

"A…diversion," Miranda responds.

"A diversion?" The hologram cocks its head. "Do you not have full access to my mainframe?"

"It's complicated," I tell him to forestall a lengthy discussion. From the sounds of it, the Cerberus troops are losing, and we don't have a lot of time left. "We just need a few pieces of information."

"Very well."

"Where's the Mu Relay?"

Vendetta looks at me for a second. "The location of the Mu Relay is classified. State the reasons for your inquiry."

"We've got an indoctrinated guy running around with an army of fanatical robotic soldiers believing the Reapers are the ultimate evolutionary stage looking for the Conduit." I lean in towards Vendetta. "I know the Conduit is on the other side of that relay, and we need to stop him from getting there."

"Indoctrinated…you have come in contact with the Reapers." It's not a question.

"Yeah…one of them tried sticking his voice into my head. Goes by the name of _Sovereign_. You might know him – big, ugly, and has this sort of god-complex going on. Oh wait, I just described all of them."

"You have resisted indoctrination?" Vendetta asks curiously. "That is impossible."

I just shrug in response. "I wouldn't exactly say I resisted anything. Didn't exactly get the impression he was trying to indoctrinate me…more like scare me, or something. I don't really know, but it was freaky as hell."

"Curious. Cross-referencing. The Reapers have never tried to communicate with a prothean outside of attempted indoctrinations."

"I'm sure they're going to try eventually," I mutter.

"There is merit in that assumption," Vendetta confirms. "However, I currently detect no Reaper influence in either of you, therefore I am required to provide you with the information in question."

"Thank you."

The holographic prothean looks down at Miranda's omni-tool. "Transmitting coordinates to local data archiving tool. Transfer complete. Was there anything else?"

"The...the Collectors. Weaponry, armor, specs. Anything you have on them and the Reapers' offensive and defensive capabilities."

"Cross-referencing. No match found for the term Collectors. Proceeding with data transfer on Reaper technology."

That's right, the protheans probably wouldn't have known the Collectors by that name yet, the Reapers likely turned the remaining protheans into them after the extinction was almost complete. "What about your tech?" I ask Vendetta. "Anything you have found to be effective against them would help a lot."

"Processing request. Acknowledged. File transfer complete." He flickers for a moment, then looks sharply at Miranda. "Detecting foreign access to mainframe. Enabling countermeasures."

"What?" Miranda is staring intently at the screen of her omni-tool. Bloody fucking _hell_. I make to grab the device from her, but she swings it away. "Miranda! Stop it, what the hell are you doing? We have what we came for."

Although, if I'm completely honest, that question really is rather rhetorical. I have a pretty good idea of what it is she's doing, and I can only hope that protheans were good programmers, because Vendetta is probably up against the best cyberwarfare and hacking suite Cerberus can produce right now.

"Warning. Further attempts to access secured information without the required clearance will result in termination of this interaction," Vendetta warns.

"Miranda!"

"Commencing systems shutdown," Vendetta vanishes, leaving Miranda to curse at her omni-tool.

I just grab her by the shoulder. "What the hell?" I hiss at her. "What the hell were you trying to do?"

"Do you have any idea how much good a fully intact prothean database could do for humanity? Forget the Reapers for a moment, this could help us advance decates, if not centuries technologically!" She pulls out of my grip and starts flipping the control panels to power up the beacon again. Considering how hastily Vendetta shut down, I wouldn't put money on him coming out on top a second time against Miranda's hacking.

The connections hum back to life, and there's only one thing I can do. There's no way in hell I'm letting Tim have a functioning prothean VI. So I move myself between Miranda and the central console, the one right underneath the statue.

"What are you doing?" she echoes my earlier question.

"Making sure you're not making a giant mistake. We aren't ready for what's in there, Miranda. The asari took centuries, if not millennia to sift through it, and they're as long-lived as they come. Some of the asari studying it probably were _alive_ when this damn thing was first dug out. This is Pandora's Box for us. You've got to see it. That much, it's just going to end badly."

She's silent for a long moment. "I have my orders."

_Orders_. That's it, isn't it? I should've guessed that this wasn't entirely her own idea. No wonder she came around so quickly after talking to him. There's no way he would have passed up the opportunity at a functioning prothean beacon and VI. The firefight outside, all this…dammit. "Forget it," I tell her in a sudden onset of almost childish insolence. I'm not having any part in this.

I kind of suspected that Tim would order her to do something like this, but I had hoped, really hoped that she wouldn't go along with it. In, out, no harm, no foul, just like she said. Guess that was too much to ask for.

She turns on me, and for the first time since I've known her, she looks really, _really_ angry. "Oh, no. You're not going to do this. This was _your_ idea, this is _your_ doing. We're here because of you. Don't take that attitude with me, because this is as much your problem as it's mine. We're here to do a job, so let's do the damn job and go home."

"Look, I know what this is all about. This is that goddamn Illusive Man of yours not being able to keep his fucking hands off prothean tech. You think I'm stupid, Miranda?" I have to keep myself from flinching as she grabs on to my shoulders, her nails digging deeply even through the fabric of my shirt. But fuck it, I'm not backing down on this one. That Illusive asshole doesn't intimidate me. "You think I don't know what you're doing here? What's going on? He's trying to play God, Miranda. Think about it. Cerberus isn't ready for this. _Humanity_ isn't ready for this. You think that Illusive bastard is going to stop there with all that prothean tech at his disposal? Think about it. _Think_, Miranda. You of all people should know what he's planning, what he's already _doing._ The biotic experiments, the army he's building. Teltin? Pragia? Any of those ring a bell? Project Overlord? Yandoa?"

"How-"

I cut her off, bringing my arms up to break her grip on me. "Don't tell me you agree with his humano-centric view. Humans aren't the goddamn master race. It's fucking Hitler all over again, in fucking _space_."

For a moment there I think I got through to her. Come on, Miranda, don't be such a tool. ,Question your orders. Ask yourself _why_. But then she makes to step past me. I shadow her and block her path. "We have our orders," she snarls at me. "You wanted us to fight this war? Fine, we're fighting it. But we're fighting it _our_ way. This is war, we're doing whatever we have to in order to make sure we survive. We're doing whatever it takes to _win_. I don't know how you do things where you're from, but when we're given orders, we _follow_ them."

"Following orders is nice and well, but when you're following a genocidal maniac, there comes a point when doing what's right trumps following orders. Please, Miranda. You have to see that this isn't going to end well. For anyone."

And then, suddenly, I'm staring down the barrel of her sidearm. Where the hell she was hiding that and how she got it onto the planet in the first place, I have no clue, but I'm looking right down the sights at her expressionless face. "Step aside. _Now_," she says.

"What happened to you, Miranda? I've never seen you like this." The prospect of a gun in my face should terrify me. But somehow, it doesn't, not with her at the other end. Maybe I'm being stupid. In fact, I'm willing to bet I'm being downright retarded, because there's no reason at all for me to believe she won't pull the trigger. This little adventure has made it abundantly clear where her loyalties lie.

"Perhaps you weren't looking closely enough, then."

"No, I guess I didn't."

"Step aside. I don't want to shoot you."

I shrug at that. "You're going to have to, if you want to get to that console."

"Is your asset giving you trouble, Lawson?" a new voice cuts in from the main entrance, a voice I recognize immediately. He only had a few lines in the game, but goddammit he did a lot of damage. After _Bastion_ I really thought I wasn't going to see the asshole again until Mass Effect 3 rolled around, but apparently, _that_ was also wishful thinking.

"I can handle him," Miranda replies evenly.

"You do remember that we're under orders to terminate him following the successful recovery of the target. He's of no more use to us with the data cache in our possession. The Illusive Man's words, not mine," Kai Leng smirks as he strolls through the temple as if he were on vacation and hadn't just waded through a goddamn firefight outside to get here. "So if I were you, I would just shoot him and get it over with. Either way he ends up dead, we get the data, and everyone's happy."

"Yeah, well, I'm going to have to disagree with that plan," I counter, trying to hide my growing nervousness. Miranda I can handle, but Kai Leng? I'm screwed. Fuck, I thought the guy was still recovering from me dropping half a spaceship on him when we took off from _Bastion_. I mean, the guy was _mangled_. How he's even standing after just three or so weeks is baffling.

"There's not much you can do about it, Grayson," Leng smirks. "In case you hadn't noticed, we have you outgunned and outnumbered."

Miranda's eyes flicker back and forth between the assassin and the entryway. The fighting's getting closer, and she's getting increasingly nervous. Huh…maybe I can use that. She's got to worry about how long that diversion is going to last, because eventually, the asari are either going to overrun whatever troops Cerberus sent, or they're going to call in the big guns and _then_ overrun whatever Cerberus sent. If I can stall them long enough for the asari to break through their lines…

"Yeah, but I know something you don't." Grasping for straws here, but I'll take every second I can buy.

Kai Leng shrugs, lifting the shroud covering his still-healing cybernetic eyes. "Too bad I don't care. Intelligence isn't my business. Killing is." He raises his pistol.

Okay, this is getting ridiculous. I need my ass saved _again_. There's got to be some cosmic joke in here. I look over at Miranda. There's something in her eyes…she's conflicted. "Come on, Miranda. You really think shooting me is going to help?"

"It'll certainly be very satisfying for me," Kai Leng replies in her stead.

Unfortunately, he also hasn't made the rookie mistake of standing within grappling distance. He's a comfortable six feet away – far enough that I can't reach him, but close enough that he doesn't even need to sight his weapon to hit me. I keep on looking at Miranda, determined to make her look back at me through sheer force of will.

"Where do you think it's going to stop, huh? Think about it. This…this is only going to make us weaker for when the Reapers come. What happened to having my back, Miranda? Please, I'm asking you…trust me on this one."

She's getting there, I can tell, because she's starting to think. That's good…thinking is good. Too bad Kai Leng is still there. "Unlike her, I don't get paid to think. I get paid to kill."

And he squeezes the trigger.

And then there's a ridiculously loud discharge of pure energy as biotics explode around us.


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter Twenty-Two**

Somehow, I'm still alive, but there's no time to marvel at that fact. The moment Kai Leng's shot goes off, Miranda's barrier flares into existence between me and the master assassin, deflecting the round and causing a rippling cascade of energy that gives me enough time and cover to sprint forward and body-check the psycho. Being the expert fighter he is, he rolls with the impact and the two of us end up tumbling across the floor.

We come to a stop, with his pistol discarded in favor of a long knife. I scramble around to keep him from impaling me on a blade the length of my forearm but between his physical conditioning and cybernetic augments, he's just that much stronger than me. His face is inches from mine as he forces the weapon closer. "I prefer this way," he says almost conversationally. "It's so much more personal, isn't it? So much more enjoyable to look them in the eye."

My legs are pinned expertly and my arms are kind of busy staving off my impending doom. Okay, time for the emergency backup plan. Not sure if this is going to work, but hell, I'm pretty much dead anyway. Rolling slightly to the side to bring my shoulder in between us, I take my right hand off his forearm and brace my left side against him to take the pressure. Fumbling at my utility belt I retrieve the long cylinder that I started building a couple of days before the _Normandy_ returned to the Citadel and finished just before we left for Thessia. Guess this is going to be the field test.

"Hey, scar-face. You know why Shepard keeps me around?"

"I don't, actually."

"Because I'm a crazy motherfucker." Pressing the stud on the foot-long cylinder causes a sharp pneumatic hiss, and then Leng's eyes bulge out as a two-inch diameter solid metal rod slams into his torso with a good four thousand Newtons of force. To put it in perspective, that's about twice the instantaneous impact force of a champion martial artist's kick. All that went into extending the cylinder in my hand from a foot-long rod to a five-foot quarterstaff.

The assassin jerks off me, rolling again with the impact, but it's done what I wanted. It bought me some space. Springing to my feet, I give the staff an experimental whirl through the air. It's hollow and light, but feels solid enough – thank heavens for metallurgic advances in the Mass Effect 'verse. Looking across the hall at Leng, I can't help but grin. Sure, he's a ruthless and cold-blooded assassin, sure he's got the weapons and the training, and sure I haven't fought with a staff in ages.

But goddamn, having a familiar weapon in my hand feels good. For probably the first time in a fight in this crazy universe I'm handling a weapon I'm comfortable with. I've got no illusions about being able to defeat Kai Leng in a melee fight. Or any fight, for that matter – but I don't _have_ to beat him. All I've got to do is stall him until help gets here, and with a weapon in my hands I'm starting to think I can actually do it. But first…

There wasn't any time to put a firing mechanism in this thing, but Leng's gun is nearby. Diving for stuff on a solid concrete floor is generally a bad idea, so I just run by and scoop it up, unloading it into the console in front of Miranda. She jerks backwards as the interface explodes in a shower of sparks and goes dark, terminating the power-up sequence for the beacon. The pistol is cycling now and I drop it, because there's nowhere to put it on my belt without the heatsink setting something on fire or melting something.

And then that psycho assassin is back on my case, and I don't have time to think about Miranda anymore. "You've got spirit, kid," he chuckles as I pretty much run away from him and his knife. "That's going to make killing you that much more fun."

He's taking his time chasing me around...just like on _Bastion_, he wants to have his fun. He's supremely confident in his ability to get away even after we've dragged this out. And that's going to be his downfall, as long as I can keep him thinking I'm a relatively easy kill, he'll want to keep playing.

It's not like the movies where the bad guy chases you around and takes wild swings, not at all. Despite the fact that he's a complete and utter nutcase, Kai Leng is _good_ at what he does, there's no denying that. He just advances, forcing me to step back, around display stands and artifacts, his knife always at the ready, trying to find the right moment to strike.

"You're not going to fight back?" he asks curiously, almost as if he's making friendly conversation. "Ah, I see. You're stalling. Hoping that someone will come to your rescue?"

"Something like that." My staff spins in front of me lazily as I keep one eye on him and the other on the main entrance. "Even you can't fight off all the asari troops that are bound to come rushing in here."

He cocks his head curiously. "You underestimate me. But I suppose I _should_ wrap this up."

That's the only warning I get as he lunges at me, knife extended. My staff swings around as old instincts kick in, parrying the thrust up and to the right as I step into the blow abnd around him, bringing the other end of my weapon around to strike at the back of his head. Leng rolls under and springs back to his feet, a feral grin on his face.

"So, not quite as helpless as you tried to make out, eh? Good, good."

And then his blade crashes against my staff again and again as we start a frantic and lethal game of cat and mouse. Sidestepping a particular nasty thrust that would probably have run me through I bring the staff in my hands around my body, whirling it around in the defensive patterns I remember from way back when I took martial arts during my undergraduate college years. It's coming back to me, but I can tell that it's not going to be enough. Even with adrenaline fueling my reflexes, I'm only barely keeping up.

There's no room for doubt, no room for being terrified - I'm sure that'll come later, but every conscious thought aside from the next counter, the next block, the next dodge is pushed aside. There can be no distractions if I want to live long enough to _be_ scared. Forget _thinking_, just _do_, is what we were taught. In battle there's no time to think, every reaction has to be spontaneous, instant. My heart is beating fast enough that I think even Leng can hear it. My hands would be shaking right now if I wasn't gripping the staff so tightly.

And to be honest, part of me is excited. The fight, the adrenaline, the sheer _impossibility_ of this situation. There's nothing quite like being in an up-close and personal fight that speaks to the ancient cave-man urges within you. I guess I can relate to why some people like to fight.

It's exhilarating and terrifying all at the same time.

But he's still playing, still just messing around, testing me out. His attacks are coming relatively slowly, probing, and still I'm forced to block most of them instead of being able to completely avoid them.

And he's slowly speeding up, trying to figure out how good I am, which, I'm afraid to say, is not very. And as I bring my staff up in a ringing parry dangerously close to my face, I know I can't keep this up for much longer.

Guess it's time to change the tune, then. Bringing my weapon around my body I stop my backwards momentum and step _forward_, instead, the hollow metal rod singing through the air as it reaches out for the assassin. He evades my counter-attack easily, of course, but hitting him wasn't the point. I keep on striking at him, running through one kata after another, and he keeps on dodging and backing away. A pair of kidney blows is deflected easily with the flat of his blade, a thrust redirected, and a crushing overhand blow dodged. The forms never stop, never slow down, trying to deprive him of space and time to renew his attack.

I zone out for a bit, everything except for him and my weapon fading from my perception, acting on pure muscle memory, whipping the staff around me in an attempt to hit him. I'm not even really aiming, just following the forms that were drilled into me for a good couple of years before I no longer had time to attend the classes. It's not going to be enough, but it'll have to be.

Finally, blade and staff crash together with a hollow clang as he brings it up to block a sweeping arc aimed for his face, and he reaches out with his free hand. I'm a second too slow in retracting my weapon, and Leng grabs a hold of it and _yanks_, ripping it out of my hands and tossing it over his shoulder in one smooth motion.

Well, _fuck_.

But then there's this little trick I picked up from one of my favorite movie characters, Evelyn O'Connell. Stepping _into_ Kai Leng's reach, I let go of the staff and haul back to smack him right in the face.

The fact that it actually connect stuns us both. I hadn't really expected him to fall for it, but there's a distinct crack as his nose dislocates, and for a second we both just stare at each other in muted disbelief. One of his hands reaches for his bleeding nose, and his pupils dilate with fury as I take a couple of cautionary steps back.

Well, I wanted him pissed, he's pissed.

Unfortunately, this is about the worst situation for me, because the pistol is discarded about a dozen feet to the side, and my prototype force lance is way behind him. "I'm going to enjoy killing you," he snarls and charges at me.

There's no time to get out of the way or do anything fancy, so I just turn to the side and try to minimize the damage. A cry of pain echoes in the hall, and it takes me a moment to register that it's my own voice as the blade leaves a bloody gash straight across my abdomen. Self-defense training both long past and more recent with Miranda kicks in and my arms react out of their own accord, coming up and around, pushing against his extended elbow and shoulder and redirecting the majority of his forward momentum into the ground.

It doesn't stop him long, as he rolls with the impact and comes back up in a mere second, but it's long enough that I can make a sprint for a weapon. Any weapon, at this point I'll take a goddamn _rock_ if there was one close by. I run for the staff because it's closer, but by the time I get there the adrenaline has worn off and I stumble, barely managing to catch myself and pick up the weapon.

Fuck.

Then, suddenly, the thrill of the fight fades away and I'm left clutching a five-foot pole with sweaty hands and staring at a master assassin who's only standing fifteen feet away with a bloody knife in his hands.

And that not-thinking bit I did earlier? Yeah, that's gone, too. Forcing a long breath into my lungs, I deliberately shift my right leg backwards and bring up the staff defensively. Now I know why you're not supposed to think during battle, because the only thing I _can_ think of is the myriad ways in which this could go horribly wrong. Every possible attack he can make, every angle he can come from flashes through my thoughts too quickly for me to formulate a counter, leaving me standing there rather shakily, unsure of what to do. Bleeding, hurting, wondering if this is it - if I finally fucked up to the point where there's no recovery.

And completely terrified of him coming at me again.

"Come on, come on, don't think, just do," I repeat to myself, but it's no use. But I cling to that mantra anyway, because I've got nothing left. No more tricks, no more fancy martial arts moves, and no more allies.

The next time he attacks, it's with the blinding speed I remember from his duel with Thane on the Citadel and his fight with Shepard in this very temple, and all I can do is bring up my staff and hope to block some of the brunt of his assault. It's somewhat successful, but his blade just slips past my guard once...and that's all it takes.

I tip over backwards, rolling with the impact, and for the second time today the force lance is torn from my grip and flung aside. Cocking my head to the left, I narrowly avoid having it split open like a coconut by the assassin's violent stab that embeds his blade into the floor by a good five inches. He yanks it free and rears back.

And in a haze of blue and silver, he's blasted off me by a biotic whirlwind courtesy of the last person I expected to come to my rescue.

The asari priestess stalks through the debris around us, her entire body awash with a brilliant azure light as a pair of biotic spheres coalesce in her hands. Without a word, she keeps projecting them at Kai Leng, burying him under a veritable storm of energy. One of the walls of the temple blows inwards under fire from a gunship and, in a scene that is sickeningly familiar, Leng jumps aboard as it takes to the skies amidst tracer fire from the asari ground forces.

"Are you all right?" the priestess asks me, hurrying over after the assassin's hasty departure.

"I think so," I groan, propping myself off the floor. "Sorry about your temple," I tell her sheepishly, looking around me at the devastation caused by the Cerberus attack.

"That's quite all right. What matters is that the battle is over and you are safe. What about your mate?"

My..._Miranda_!

T

She was lucky, damn lucky, if the doctors are to be believed. When that gunship blew its way into the compound to extract Kai Leng, she was standing damn close to the wall when it went boom. At least, that's where we found her, in the rubble. A couple of broken ribs, a busted leg, but very little internal bleeding. In all, she got off lightly for being so close to, well, the impact site of some really high-powered weaponry. I feel a little guilty that I hadn't even thought about her, completely lost track of her after stopping her from reactivating the beacon. Then again, I had Kai-fucking-Leng in my face the majority of that time.

"How is she?" the asari priestess - I think her name was Gawein D'Leroi, she introduced herself on the medevac shuttle - asks from the doorway of Miranda's hospital room.

"Stable, I think. It could've been worse, much worse."

She steps inside, looking very unruffled for someone who just blasted her way through a horde of Cerberus shock troopers not too long ago, and lays a hand on the bandage across my stomach. "What about yourself?"

"So hopped up on painkillers I can barely feel a thing." It's not that bad, really, between the analgesic and the way they cauterized the wound shut, it actually doesn't hurt much. There wasn't even much blood loss to begin with, because it wasn't all that deep. I look up at her and drop my shirt back down. "Thank you again. For saving my life back there."

"Of course," she inclines her head. "Though I must ask...one such as you, and her, we do not get such visitors at all. Your futures are confusing, hounded by conflict and war. There is much death in both of your futures. Why did you really come?"

Her eyes are boring into mine, her pupils black as space and equally infinite as she stares at me. There's this...this weird air of wisdom and knowledge around her, much like it was during the ceremony, as if she _knows_, as if she is aware of even the deepest secrets of the universe. I can't tear my eyes away from hers, they're so mesmerizing, as if she's looking past the lies, past the deception, straight into my very soul, as cliché as that may sound. As if she _knows_ where I'm from.

"First time for everything, I guess," I tell her nervously. "Look, we didn't want any trouble, just...wrong place, wrong time, I guess."

A small smile graces her features and for an instant, her voice returns to the deep rumble that it was during the ritual. "Perhaps. Or perhaps you are at the right place at the right time, afterall..."

"What...?"

She trails off and shakes her head. "My...apologies. I don't know what came over me. You are right, of course. It is fortunate that you managed to fend off your assailant."

"Wouldn't say I _fended him off_, exactly, he was kind of kicking my ass."

The expression seems lost on her. "Either way, you survived - a remarkable feat. Still, I do not believe you came merely for the ceremony?"

"Does Athame tell you that?"

"No," the priestess responds with a smile, "but she has indicated that perhaps it would be best if you go free. I am asking merely to sate my own curiosity."

"It was that obvious, huh?"

"I suspected, but it was not until the _aerfwyn'mal_ began that I gained insight into you. You two are close, very close. And sometimes, the distinction between friend and lover, enemy and soulmate...it blurs. But you are not lovers."

"Well..."

"Yet."

I blink rapidly at that revelation. "What?"

Again with that mysterious smile. I swear, she's getting to be as bad as Q. But unlike him, she gives me an answer. "The bond you share is strange, and very complex. Trust and suspicion, loyalty and fear. There's so much, so many layers, and yet it is a bond so young. You humans have a saying, yes? May you live in interesting times, I believe?"

"Times like these, I realize why it's considered a Chinese curse," I mutter. I have no idea _how_ she knows, but somehow, someway, she does. And she's going to let us go, anyway. Well, not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

"It would appear that you are, indeed, in for _interesting times_, I think," she finishes, patting me on the arm. "Blessings of the Goddess be with you. I have a feeling that you may need them in the coming times."

She turns to head out the door. One glance at Miranda's unconscious form, and my decision is made. "Wait," I call out to her.

"Yes?"

I take the three steps over to her and close the door. "This is going to sound impossible and insane at the same time," is my warning to her, but she merely beckons me to continue with a tilt of her head.

"I am a priestess of Athame. We listen, we hear, and sometimes, our goddess answers. But it is not our place to judge."

"Yeah, well, let's hope so." For a moment I just stand there awkwardly, trying to figure out what to tell her, because now that I've made the decision, I realize I hadn't actually thought it through. "Look...I have a feeling that, well, dark times are coming. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon. Perhaps in a year, maybe two. And I have a feeling that when they do, the galaxy could do with a little of your faith. Guard your temple well, it may well be the last beacon of hope for us all."

She looks at me blankly for a moment, then a knowing smile hushes across her features. "I hear and understand. Thank you for your answers, and may you always sail in the wake of our goddess."

"You, too."

And then she's gone. I think she got my meaning, and once more I'm surprised by the fact that apparently, she doesn't question, she doesn't argue. Hell, just getting us out of whatever investigation the asari are launching into the attack must've taken a hell of a lot of effort.

_Faith_.

A chuckle makes its way up my throat, and I suddenly can't stop laughing.

_Faith_.

Not the belief in a divine entity, miracles, or religion. No, not at all.

The utter confidence in someone or something.

Miranda has it, Q has it for some ungodly reason, and now...a complete stranger on an alien world whom I've never met has it. Faith. It's inexplicable why they should have _any_ faith in me, but they do. And I guess that's ultimately the power of it. Believe in something enough, and it _will_ work.

Huh. Maybe those 40k space-orks got it right, after all.

T

Miranda's unconscious for the entirety of the next day. For some reason, I feel compelled to stay here - perhaps it's me clinging to someone familiar in a foreign place, as I've always been uncomfortable in other countries back home till I get used to them - or maybe it's out of some sense of having to protect her. She's my partner, after all.

Or maybe I just want answers. I _want_ to be angry at her for that stunt she pulled at the temple, sticking a gun in my face and trying to do what Tim told her to like a good little toy soldier. But she's not. What _really_ has me angry is the fact that she's _not_ someone who usually follows orders without questioning, someone who makes her own decisions. For her to just take Tim's side like that, without considering the consequences...

Maybe I'm being too harsh there, because she doesn't know the extent of what's stored in that beacon. It could've been like the cache on Mars, incredible knowledge and technologies, or it could've been like the one on Eden Prime - just something to transmit a vision. Considering how advanced the asari are, though, I'd put money on there being a _lot_ of prothean knowledge stored in Vendetta's memory banks, though.

I am...I guess I don't know _what_ to feel right now. The only thing that's clear to me at this moment is that I'm not leaving her. At least asari hospital accomodations are more comfortable than those back home. No cheap plastic chairs here.

So I've been sitting here for the past day, grabbing snacks from the cafeteria and reading from Miranda's copy of _In Her Majesty's Navy_ to her. It's a little silly, I know, but it passes the time. And I don't think I'm quite ready to ask her the big questions yet. For now, it's just enough that we're both alive, and that Tim doesn't have Vendetta.

A slight groan from the bed pulls my attention from the book, and Miranda's eyes are suddenly wide open and darting around. They settle on me after a brief inspection of the room, and she tries to sit up.

"Easy," I tell her, reaching behind her back and helping her up. "How're you feeling?"

"Dizzy. I'm in a hospital...what happened?"

I give her a lopsided smile. "You were on the wrong side of Kai Leng's exit strategy."

"That bastard..." she trails off. "You're alive." It's a statement, but I can hear the underlying question.

"Yeah. And none the worse for wear. Well, maybe a little bit."

"Is there-" she coughs a little, "is there a glass of water around?"

"Yeah, sure, hang on." Reaching over to the little bedside table, I take the glass that I've been keeping there for just this occasion and hand it to her. My fingers linger for a moment, making sure she has a firm grasp on it, until she meets my eyes. With a curt nod, I let go of the glass, and she brings it up to her lips and tilts it back.

"How long?" she asks, holding the glass out for a refill.

Grabbing the pitcher of water, I take a few seconds while filling he glass to formulate a reply. "Two days. That little attack caused a hell of an uproar. It's on practically every news channel. Even the Alliance is getting involved, since it involved human citizens."

"Damn."

"Should've thought of that before okaying that plan." Maybe that came out a little sharply, and she looks over at me.

"You don't approve."

"Of causing massive amounts of collateral damage, risking civilian casualties, and then pointing a gun in my face?" I snort a little in disbelief. "Just a little, yeah."

Miranda closes her eyes and lets out a long sigh. "I had my orders," she finally says.

"I know."

"I suppose that this marks the end of our working relationship, then?" the Cerberus operative asks me, her eyes still closed and her tone resigned. "Are you going to turn me in to the authorities? Perhaps admit that this entire operation was organized by Cerberus?"

"You know full well that I'm not going to do that."

"You should."

"Well, I'm not. I'm not stupid, Miranda. I need your help. Taking down Cerberus now in an act of blind revenge is...well, it'd be the stupidest move I could make. The Reapers are still coming, and I can't do this alone. I need you with me on this." A grin finds its way to my face. "Besides, it wasn't exactly like I didn't see something like this coming. Plus, now that he's without his prize, I think he'll realize that I can still be of use. And maybe...I'll have to show him I'm not bluffing, after all."

"For what it's worth...I'm sorry."

"I know." Man, I've got to stop channeling Han Solo.

Miranda looks up at me and sets the glass down on the nightstand. "So, where do we go from here?"

Rummaging around in my pocket, I come out with a data chip. "While the illusive asshole's mission may have failed, _we_ succeeded. We have the location of the Mu Relay and tactical data on the Reapers. So, I propose a new plan."

"I hope it'll go better than your last."

"Hey, a lot of this came from _your_ end of the agency."

Miranda just shrugs and nods in acknowledgement. "Point taken. So, your plan?"

"It's deceptively simple," I elaborate grandly, sweeping my arms around the room like I'm some four-star explaining his battle strategy to his troops. Hey, I can't help it, I'm feeling a little silly. For the first time in a while, we're actually up in the score and I don't have to worry about an alert, or being deployed, or having to fight for my life. "We go to the Mu Relay, find the Conduit, set a trap for Saren, and when he comes...we spring it."

"Is that all?" Miranda asks with a smirk.

"Yep. Simple, right?"

"Also perhaps a little sparse on the details."

"Hey, I came up with that in the last five minutes, give me a break."

She looks over at me with this weird expression, and then finally smiles. "I'm sure we can refine it a little."

"Yeah."

"Why..." she suddenly breaks off and falls silent, her head rolling over to look at the wall on the other side of her bed. Just when I think she's terminated our conversation, she speaks back up, still not looking at me. "Why are you here?"

"Funny you should say that," I reply easily. "Our asari priestess from the temple asked me the exact same thing."

"Really?"

"Yeah. She knows it was all a cover. Not the attack, though."

"You say that like you aren't worried."

I shrug, then realize she can't see it. "That's because I'm not. Apparently, the goddess Athame told her that we were the good guys. She arranged for all of this and had us exempt from the investigation, aside from my statement."

_That_ gets Miranda's attention as she sits bolt upright and her head swivels back to look at me incredulously. "And we've been talking about-"

"Don't worry, I swept it," I wave her off. "You did teach me _some _things, you know."

"Oh." Miranda sinks back into the bedding. "You still haven't answered my question."

"Why am I here?" She nods at that, and I give her a little smile. I've had a lot of time to think about the answer to that particular question. "Because you're my friend. Because you're my partner. Because I promised I'd have your back. Take your pick."

"But I held you at gunpoint, almost had you killed."

I just wave her off. "Eh, what's a little life-or-death tension between friends. I know you were following orders, and yes, I'm upset. But not because of what you may think. This isn't like you, Miranda, just blindly following orders without thinking. You...you _question_, you _doubt_, you wonder whether you're doing the right thing, as ugly as it may be."

"I know."

"Then what happened? Why did you stop thinking? Come on, don't tell me you actually believe his bullcrap about building a better future for humanity? You've seen what he's doing. The guy may be brilliant, but he's also a megalomaniac bastard." For some reason, I can't stay angry at her when she looks all contemplative like she is now. "Look, just...just think. If the asari took centuries, even millennia, to digest everything the protheans had to offer, and they _still_ aren't done, don't you think that it'll be too much for humanity? I'm not saying we aren't worthy, but are we truly ready as a race?"

"Maybe not," Miranda admits quietly. "I...I hadn't thought about it. All I could think of was the promise of technology, cures for diseases, weapons, tech, anything to help us through the coming war."

So that's how Tim sold her on it. "I know. And it's not a complete loss. But there's things that shouldn't fall into the wrong hands. And as much as your Illusive Man may have humanity's best interest at heart in his agenda somewhere, I don't think you'll want to live in his ideal galaxy. The guy's this generation's Hitler, if you think about it. Trying to create the perfect biotic, human experimentation, spreading xenophobia. Humans aren't the master race, we aren't superior to anyone else. What we are is a race of young, arrogant dreamers when it comes to sailing among the stars."

"That's a rather depressing way of looking at things."

"True," I nod, "but there's one redeeming quality we humans have."

"Oh? What's that?"

"We don't know when to quit."

"But there'll be a next time," she cautions. "Another time when the Illusive Man decides that you've outlived your usefulness in the future."

"Yeah, there will be. I'm counting on it, in fact. And the next time, I'll be ready. And I'm hoping that next time, you'll be at my side."

Miranda manages a weak smile at me. "What's with the sudden confidence?"

"Oh," I shrug, "maybe I just needed a little...faith."


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter Twenty-Three**

"That's an interesting device you built," Miranda says as she stands behind me looking down at my prototype force lance on the workbench. It's in pieces right now as I'm trying to figure out how to add a firing mechanism and ammunition supply. It'll have to be distinctly different tech from the usual Mass Effect guns, because I can't afford having any hot spots along where I'll be holding on to it, which means a custom job.

"Like it? I had the idea a little while back. It's based of a weapon I saw a couple of times back home."

"A melee weapon in an age of firearms?" she asks skeptically. "It's an interesting concept, good for concealment, but I'm not sure about its effectiveness."

"That's why I'm trying to add a gun to it. And hey, it saved my life against Kai Leng." I lean back in my chair as I wait for the rapid prototyper in the corner to finish its job. "Any word on the _Normandy_?"

"Their last known location was the Sparta system. After returning from Feros, they were redirected to a classified mission by Admiral Kahoku."

Huh...the Sparta system doesn't ring any bells, but Kahoku...fuck, _Binthu_. I remember that Cerberus set that trap for Kahoku to get rid of him. Not on my fucking watch. I look over at Miranda. Does she know about this? As Tim's right hand, it's hard to imagine that she doesn't, but she seems as confused as I am.

"Can you get me a direct line to the _Normandy_?"

"The only way to get real-time communications is via QEC. The _Normandy_ isn't equipped with one that we have frequency access to," Miranda replies almost apologetically, a little confused at my urgency.

"What about a line to Rear Admiral Kahoku?"

Miranda looks at me weirdly. "Maybe…why?"

"I've got something to tell him. It'd probably sound much more believable coming from SpecOps."

"What's going on? Do you know something?"

Should I…no. Not right now. Not so soon after Thessia. She wouldn't believe me, anyway, and it would just bring up more questions that I'm not ready to answer. "Just a little personal business. Can you set up a direct line to his office with the proper clearance?"

For a moment she looks like she's about to press me, but after a second she just nods and leaves the tech lab. I let out a heavy sigh and turn back to the pieces of my build. The last two days on our way back from Thessia have been anything but easy. I mean, I told her we're good, but…our relationship is much like my force lance right now. It was great, working for a brief moment and doing its job. And then we hit its shortcomings, and now it's in pieces.

I can't put my finger on exactly what it is, it's probably a product of multiple causes, but we've been…we've been walking on eggshells around each other the past forty-eight hours, despite our best efforts to make things go back to _normal_. Whatever normal is for us. Miranda hasn't said much – even less than she usually does – but I get the feeling she always wants to say something, but doesn't. Pretty much the same way I'm feeling. Now that I've had time to properly process the events on Thessia, it's all hit me. Her holding a gun to my head, Kai Leng, Tim wanting me dead.

It's a little overwhelming. A few of those things I can deal with. Tim I don't have to worry about for now, because he doesn't have Vendetta, so he still needs me. Kai Leng I don't have to worry about…much. At least until he gets another contract on me.

That leaves Miranda.

As much as I told her we're good, I can't get around the fact that I trusted her, and she pulled…_this_. The worst part was that, for an instant there, I could see it in her eyes that she wanted to do as ordered and just shoot me. Probably should have, and then could've made off with a copy of Vendetta without much hassle. But something gave her pause, caused her to hesitate. I understand why she did what she did, I understand that Tim can be very persuasive, but I'd hoped...you know, I'd really hoped that she'd be able to see past that. And it hurts, but I can see that she didn't like following his orders. That a part of her actually...halted.

And that alone makes me want to stick around. I have no one else, and despite everything, Miranda's my friend. Perhaps next time...

But not now. Even if I wanted to trust her again right now, I'm not sure I could. Oh, I'd still trust her to watch my back on any op we went on together, but even so, I'm not sure I trust her as fully as I used to anymore. That's going to take time. But we're still here. She's still Miranda, and I'm still me, and despite it all, I find that I still believe in her, still trust in her. Q even tried to warn me that I was trying to do too many things, too quickly. That she may not have been ready for it.

Now, in hindsight, I'd have to agree, no matter how much I don't like admitting that he's right. Perhaps I was overzealous, perhaps I should've gone about doing things a little more carefully. I knew what Tim was going to pull, saw that one coming a mile away, but despite my closeness to Miranda, I never saw _her_ part in it coming.

Or maybe it's _because _of my closeness with her. Maybe I need to...put some distance between us, regain some of that outside-looking-in perspective. Hell if I know. It's sobering actually, how much I've come to rely on Miranda. Not just her Cerberus resources, or her abilities, but just her..._presence_. Just the simple act of being there has done more for me, I think, than all the training she's provided. The fact that there's someone here, in this universe, who's there, who'll listen, who'll _believe_ is very...grounding, I guess is the best word for it.

Perhaps I got a little too dependent on that. Couldn't see the forest for the trees, so to speak, never saw the betrayal coming because I didn't want to see it coming. And yet, for some unfathomable reason, I'm still here, because I believe in her still. And perhaps that's a good thing. But maybe it's time I...took a step back and looked at the big picture again.

But that's another matter for another time. Right now, I've got to talk to Admiral Kahoku. The comm line is already set up when I get to Miranda's office, and she's idling in the door. Again, it's so unlike her that it's starting to creep me out. I mean, in the games you always got the feeling that she was...well, ultra-professional, and would stab you in the back without a second thought if she thought it would further her goals. This...is completely unexpected. Completely unlike her. I know she's not a cold-hearted, backstabbing assassin waiting for your usefulness to end, hell no. But her loyalties are clearly defined, and despite my best efforts, all I've been able to do is...blur them a bit. I've gotten to know her, though, and that gives me hope, because I've never seen her so affected by a mission.

And I really want to attribute that to the fact that she feels bad for having to, well, try and kill me on Thessia, but a nagging part of me can't shake the feeling that perhaps it's a bait for yet another trap.

I ignore both of them and sit down in front of the terminal. The Systems Alliance crest is displayed on the screen, and with the tap of a button, it's connecting me to Kahoku's office. Out of the corner of my eye I notice that Miranda's stepping out of the room. Yet another thing that's off about her; usually, while she respects my privacy, she wants to know the details about every single thing I do, especially if it's something as high-profile as making a call to a senior Alliance commanding officer.

"Kahoku," the other end of the line clicks as someone picks up.

"Admiral," I begin over the voice-only link. "I work for Special Operations. Clearance alpha-seven-zulu-stroke-niner." The last part is an actual clearance code Miranda forged for me, in case I ever needed access to Alliance databanks.

There's a brief pause at the other end. "Confirmed. What can I do for you, agent?"

"I have information regarding your missing men in Sparta," I tell him, glad he doesn't ask my name. Then again, I suppose he's used to dealing with spies and SpecOps personnel that rarely ever give their names, anyway.

"I'm listening." There's a supicious tone in his voice.

"You lost contact with your men on Edolus. The _Normandy_ was requested to investigate."

"Correct."

A deep breath, and then I realize what I have to do. On the one hand, it'll save a lot of lives - Kahoku's included, if done right - but on the flipside, it's going to make that bullseye Tim put on my back even bigger. "I have information that your men may have been lured into a trap by a terrorist organization called Cerberus. They're the hub connecting all the independent cells that you have been tracking via Naval Intelligence and SpecOps for the past couple of months."

"How do you know this?"

"I've been tracking that same group, Admiral, and I may or may not have a source inside. I've been collecting evidence linking them to recent terrorist attacks, running down their funding, and marking their operations sites for future strikes, but it's by no means complete." I hesitate a little as I wonder if I really should be telling him all of this. But there's no way I'm letting Cerberus kill a good man just because he got too close to them. "They're also connected to the recent attack on the asari homeworld."

"Are you certain?" I'm not sure if Kahoku believes me, but he seems intrigued, at least.

"Dead certain. Whatever happens, Admiral, don't contact the Shadow Broker to track them down. I have it on very good authority that they're targeting you, specifically. You're getting too close for their comfort."

"How do you know I was going to contact…him?"

I give him a weak, lopsided grin. "SpecOps has its sources, Admiral. I can give you the location that they'll want you to hit, and I can guarantee that there'll be an ambush waiting."

"So what do you suggest we do?"

"We ambush the ambushers."

"Really?" Kahoku leans forward on his elbows. "Tell me more."

T

"Why can't I come along?" Miranda asks as I stuff everything into my duffel bag. Armor, weapons, spare clothes. Continuing the tune of weirdness between us, she hasn't even questioned my request for a ship to rendezvous with Admiral Kahoku's flagship, the SSV _Valor_.

And I can't very well tell her that she can't come along in case we run into more of Tim's people and have to shoot at them. This is going to send a message to that illusive bastard that the Alliance is going to turn up the heat on him, and I don't think he'll have any trouble connecting the dots. He's going to be pissed off enough at me as it is, I don't need him telling Miranda to stop me.

Because there's no doubt that if I told her where I'm going, she'd have to report it to Tim. So far, all she knows is that I have to run down a lead on Saren, despite the fact that we already have the Mu Relay's location. "It's…a personal matter," I finally tell her.

"Personal matter?" she looks at me incredulously. "You don't _have_ personal matters. In all the time I've known you, you've never had a personal matter. What's really going on? Don't you-" she cuts off abruptly, but I can hear the unspoken words. _Don't you trust me?_

I open my mouth to answer, but I can't say it. Last week the answer would have been spontaneous, instant. Last week the answer would've been _yes_. Today...I don't know. If I'm entirely honest with myself, part of me doesn't know if I _want_ to trust her again, so soon after what happened. But I've never been one to hold a grudge, and despite it all, she's still...Miranda. And so I crack a weary smile and nod. "I do, Miranda, but this is something that you're better off not knowing about."

She pauses for a moment, her mouth frozen in a half-formed reply as she tries to reconcile the rebuttal she would have had for me ordinarily with recent events. "What about backup?"

"I've got it covered." I think. "Look, Mira, you don't have to worry. You trained me well."

"A little too well, it would seem," she mutters under her breath.

I hear her, anyway. "Maybe. But this is something I've got to do. And perhaps, just perhaps, it'll get that crazy boss of yours off my back for a bit."

She sighs and looks up at me, then, and from the slight slump in her posture, I can tell she's given up the argument. Another thing that's different now - she's not as confrontational, not as pushy as she used to be. It's like she doesn't want to argue with me anymore.

And then her eyes focus on me. "_Mira_?" she asks.

I just shrug. "Struck me as a Mira moment."

"That's the second time you've called me that."

When was...oh, right, after _Sovvy_ paid me a not-so-friendly visit. "Don't worry about it."

"If you say so," she concedes, albeit skeptically. "When will you be back?"

"I don't know. Keep an eye out for the _Valor_. Don't worry, I'll send a postcard." Can't help it, but a bit of my usual tone leaks through the dreary air.

"Good," she says simply. "Good."

I resume my packing - not that there's much to pack to begin with. Miranda remains in the room, silent, leaning against the doorframe, watching me as I finish up. And then, finally, when I'm done, I straighten up, the duffel resting at the foot of my bed, and sit down heavily.

And then there's uncomfortable silence, because my shuttle doesn't leave for another three hours. Between me sitting on the bed and Miranda standing in the door, I'm wondering what's become of us. We never used to be this way, even when I first met her. There was always something going on, some talk or some banter.

She'd ask me about where I came from, or where I got my intel from, and I'd reply wittily and she'd roll her eyes and throw a playful threat at me, and the day would go on. And then, after _Bastion_, we'd actually...talk. Not about important things, feelings or such, but just little, inane, everyday things. Small things, that somehow made it feel like I _wasn't_ in the middle of a life-or-death struggle with the coming Reaper invasion.

They say you never know what you have till it's gone, and I've found through events in my life that that's very true. But I never would've thought that I'd file idle chit-chat with Miranda Lawson under that category, ever. And yet, somehow, it's there, and I miss it. Our banter, her comebacks and repartee that always are wittier than mine, hell even her playful death threats in the beginning.

Of course, that was before I realized just how serious she can take those.

But dammit, I miss talking to her, I miss the easy bond we used to have, and I refuse to let what happened on Thessia break it apart like the goddamn proverbial elephant in the room. I'm not letting Tim have this victory. I'm going to go about my business, and I'm going to rebuild that trust I had in Miranda - whether that's a foolish endeavour or not, is for someone else to decide, I guess. I'll go do just that.

Right as soon as I figure out what the hell to say.

I look up at Miranda and open my mouth to say something, _anything_, but nothing will come out. She just looks right back at me, her jaw working as she, too, apparently can't quite find the right words.

"This is ridiculous," I finally manage. Judging from the expression on her face, it probably wasn't the wisest thing to say.

But I don't give her any time to cut in, because now that the dam's been nicked, there's no way I'm letting her stop the flood of words that wants to come out, because I doubt I'd get another chance. "This," I gesture at both of us, "us. I mean, come on, what the fuck happened to us?"

And this time I _do_ pause, waiting for her reply to my almost rhethorical question. "I don't know," she finally admits quietly.

And then, suddenly, I feel angry. Angry at her, angry at myself, angry at the whole goddamn universe. No idea where it came from, but somehow, I welcome it, because it makes me say words. Any words, anything at all to break that infernal silence between us. "This is fucking stupid."

Yeah, I tend to swear a lot when I'm frustrated. Just ask the guys I worked with one summer during my doctorate work. Eight weeks of wrestling with stubborn, mis-matched parts and electronics had me almost banned from the lab facilities for excessive and vulgar swearing. I can be _very_ creative when I want to be. In four languages.

"I mean, holy fucking mother of Jesus Christ on a chocolate-covered pogostick, Miranda, what the _fuck_ were you _thinking_? Are you really that stupid? What did that illusive asshole offer you, huh? What'd he promise you for bringing in that prothean VI? A ship? Money? An all-expenses paid vacation to his personal island? _Chto za huy_, can't you see what that _govedo_ is trying to _do_ to this fucked up universe? Come on, I thought you trusted me, Miranda, I _asked_ you to trust me on this one!"

That gets her rounded up right in my face, and part of me actually enjoys this. Yes, we're yelling and screaming at each other, but at least it's not silence. "Like you're any better? Do you have any idea what I've risked for you?" she counters angrily, crackling with biotic energy in her rage. "Do you have _any_ comprehension of what lines I've crossed, what bridges I've burned to let you have your little adventure?"

"_Da eba taz kreeva neeva_, you're talking to me about _risk_? I'm the one who has your fucking boss trying to find an excuse to torture my brains out and sending a psychotic assassin after me!"

"And _trust_?" Miranda almost screeches in my face, her face flushed in her uncontrollable anger. "You're talking about _trust_? The entire time you've been here, you haven't given me a single reason to trust you! The only information I've ever gotten was what was useful for _you_ - why in the galaxy should I even be here? Trust works _both_ ways!"

"You _said_ you had my back! You said you had faith in me, in what I was doing. I thought-"

"Faith is not the same as trust," Miranda throws back in my face.

"Because you know that that _pederas grozen gyrbaw prokazhen_ is insane! I _know_ you've got clearance to know what he's doing around the galaxy, you can't honestly tell me that you think he's _right_ what with his genetic manipulations and biotic experiments and his fucking god-complex! _Verdammt nochmal_, if you _sha gua_ can't see that, then maybe you _are_ a blind sheep who can only follow orders!"

And for the second time, I find myself staring down the barrel of her sidearm, only this time, the hand holding it is shaking with barely restrained fury. "Give me _one_ reason not to blow your brains out right here," she grinds out.

"Come on, then," I taunt her, caution long thrown to the wind as I stand up and walk towards her. "Shoot me, then. Kill me. I'm not supposed to be here, anyway, so you'll just be doing _Sovereign _a favor."

I can see her finger tightening down on the trigger as she stands there, fighting with herself for self-control. Finally, I bump into the muzzle of her pistol. "Come on, Miranda," I whisper. "Shoot me." And for a brief moment, I wonder if I've gone completely insane, but I'm too mad to really give a shit.

The backhanded slap across my face takes me by surprise, causing me to stagger back a step as she lowers her gun, and for a long moment, we just stand there, squaring off and taking deep, heaving breaths.

"I guess I deserved that," I finally say, working my jaw to make sure nothing's broken.

Miranda just nods, and then slumps back against the now-closed door, leaning against it heavily. Her pistol drops out of her hand and lands on the floor with a soft thud, and suddenly, all the fight drains right out of me, and I drop onto the floor, sitting with my back against the bedframe.

"What the hell is happening to us, Miranda?" I ask her quietly. "It...we didn't use to be this way. It's like Thessia just...fucked us up."

"I don't know," she repeats from earlier. "I just..."

"Just...tell me _why_, Miranda. I've thought about it and thought about it, and I've come up with a dozen scenarios why you'd do something like that, but...I don't understand. Help me understand, Miranda. Please."

"It seemed like the right thing to do at the time," is her simple reply. Before I can say anything, she continues, still not looking at me. "When you revealed the presence of a prothean VI, all I could think of was how much the discovery on Mars had helped humanity. In decades - _decades_! - we advanced further than we had ever dreamed to in centuries. We settled a dozen star systems within the first ten years of opening the relays! What's more, cancer, immune disorders, genetic diseases...every medical ailment that has ever eluded us, they were all _cured_ within twenty years of our discovery. Do you have any idea how many lives that saved? How much that _alone_ did for humanity?"

"I'd read-" I try to say, but she just keeps going.

"When you came here, you mentioned you'd had acute lymphoblastic leukemia that'd left you with immune defects. Do you have any idea what the mortality rate on that was for patients over the age of eighteen?"

"Fifty percent," I whisper. I know that figure by memory. I was lucky I caught it as a child, and it was discovered early.

"And that was if it was discovered early."

"I know."

"It's a thing of the past. One injection, two days of flu-like symptoms, and then you're on your way. Cancer is _gone_. Do you understand the implications of that?"

"Yeah."

Miranda shakes her head and finally slows down a bit. "The _Normandy_'s pilot. He's got Vrolik's Syndrome. That's one of the few things we haven't found a cure for yet. Could you...could you just imagine, if he could be cured? If he could walk and not fear having to fall and break every bone in his body?"

"But Cerberus?" I ask her quietly. "_Cerberus_, Miranda?"

"I know it's not optimal," she admits, "and I know you may disagree with the way Cerberus does things. I even do, at times, but we have the resources to disseminate and sift through that data. We have the resources to synthesize cures, test them, and distribute them without the veil of paperwork."

"And potentially hold worlds hostage as you control their medical supplies?"

She winces at that. "It...it wouldn't have come to that. Cerberus is...we exist for the advancement of humanity."

"Yeah," I snort in derision. "The same _advancement_ that Saren has planned. If you can't beat them, join them, right? Assimilate right into them, eliminate the weak links, and ensure survival by any means necessary. That your idea of humanity's future, Miranda?"

"You can't know-"

"But I do," I interrupt her violently, sitting up bolt upright. "Believe me, I've got enough intel and dirt on Cerberus to shut them down, if I had to. I bet you I even know what your precious Illusive Man is planning on doing. I-" I barely catch myself before I say something I shouldn't know yet. Taking a deep breath and forcing the sudden urge to scream down, I adjust my reply. "I can tell you where this is going. I'm sure he meant well at some point in time, but that's long gone. He's at the point where he's willing to do anything to further his own power. The fact that his agenda coincides with humanity's continued survival is entirely coincidental."

"What do you know? _How_ do you know?"

"I've seen this type before. You want to know where this is gonna go?" She gives a curt nod, even though it was a rhethorical statement. "We're gonna beat this Reaper. And he's gonna grab as much as he can of whatever is left of it to find out what makes them tick. How _he_ can get that kind of power. And I'm not talking about weapons, armament, tech. No, he wants the _control_. He wants to know how they can _change_ people, process them into mindless husks, and how to control people. He wants his own personal indoctrinated universe serving _him_."

"You don't know that." Looking at her, though, Miranda's looking less than sure of her protests now. And she's still not looking at me.

"Think about what he's doing, Miranda. And think about something else. If we become just like our enemies...haven't we already lost the war?" And on that note, I get up, grab my duffel, and push past her out of the room, somehow unable to stand being in there any longer. Part of it is my own fault, I guess. I should've listened to Q - heh, never thought I'd say that one day, but he was right. I was moving too fast, trying to change too many things too quickly. Miranda wasn't ready, not yet, to side with me, and from her point of view, there were serious concerns about my sanity and allegiance, I suppose. I moved too fast, without giving her reason to trust me. I got so eager to put an end to the Reapers, to nip them in the bud before anything got started, that I lost sight of everything I've built here. I forgot that, when all is said and done, I'm just an interloper in this universe. I don't belong here.

In the end, this is a debacle of my own making.

It suddenly feels small, cramped in here. Cloying.

I've got to get out of here. Might as well spend the time waiting at the terminal. Anything to get the hell away from _here_. From Cerberus. On a rational level I know I'm not being fair to Miranda. She was just doing her job, doing what she thought was right.

But on a personal level?

That betrayal hurt like _hell_.

I'm about to head out the apartment's front door, when her voice calls me back.

"For what it's worth," she says, still standing in the doorway to my room, "I'm sorry."

T

The SSV _Valor_ is a much larger ship than the _Normandy_; Cerberus intel has listed it as a _Stalwart_-class heavy cruiser, and I can see where the human design influence on the _Normandy_ originated. The _Valor_ looks a lot like the smaller frigate, with the sleek, elongated main hull and the low, sweeping aft maneuvering wings, although she lacks the rear stabilizer fins for atmospheric flight. Makes sense, since cruisers really can't land on anything but low-gravity worlds.

Nor should they, really.

As the _Kodiak_ shuttle approaches the docking bay, I can tell from the dimensions as we get closer that the cruiser is almost three times the length of the _Normandy_, bristling with torpedo tubes and GARDIAN laser emplacements. Hovering around the _Valor_ in formation are a dozen frigates, along with three other cruisers.

And a few seconds later, the flotilla drops out of sight as we enter the bay, and the doors shut behind us. A hiss of hydraulics accompanies the lowering of the boarding ramp, and then I'm led outside by the pilot to meet Rear Admiral Kahoku and three of his personal attaches, although to me, they look more like bodyguards. Guess the Admiral takes his personal safety very seriously.

"Permission to come aboard, Admiral." I stop short at the end of the ramp and salute him.

Kahoku returns the salute swiftly. "Granted, Lieutenant. Welcome aboard the _Valor_."

I step forward and shake his extended hand. "Good to be here, Admiral."

"Now, I believe you said you had information regarding my missing men and a certain...organization?"

"Yes, Admiral, but is there someplace we could speak in private?"

"Of course." He nods at one of his men. "Please unload the Lieutenant's belongings into one of our guest quarters." And then he looks back at me. "We'll head to my briefing room."

As we head down the _Valor_'s corridors, he introduces me to his two companions - a short, almost skinny-looking young man with wide eyes and short-cropped hair who looks like he'd fit right in at an Apple store, and a tall, lean, clearly military woman with graying brown hair whose uniform doesn't have a wrinkle out of place.

"Lieutenat Grayson, this," Kahoku nods at the man to his left, "is my NavInt contact, Agent Bartowski."

"Pleasure to meet you," he says, and I'm almost tempted to call him _Chuck_ for some reason.

"Same," I respond briefly, instead, squashing that urge. It can't be, right? Naaaah...

"And my XO, Commander Nadya Radmanski."

"Lieutenant," she greets curtly, all professionalism.

All right, now I _know _Q is playing a practical joke on me, because there's only one Nadya Radmanski I've ever known of and seen, and she could be almost a carbon copy of her. "You wouldn't happen to have served as the XO of the _Bellerophon_ at some point, would you?" I can't stop the question from coming out, but at least I know there's a ship in the fleet called the _Bellerophon_.

"You did your homework," she replies with a small smile.

We finally get there, and the doors close behind us. A blue light mounted above it flashes briefly, and the Kahoku settles in behind his desk, motioning for us to do the same. "All right, Lieutenant, why don't we start at the beginning?"

At my furtive glance around the room, he smiles grimly, and settles a small device on the table, much like Miranda's anti-recording jammers. "I have this room shielded against electronic surveillance, Lieutenant, and I trust these two with my life."

"All right, then." I glance over at the NavInt agent I keep wanting to call Chuck. "A few weeks ago, SpecOps picked up some chatter. We thought it was just some rogue mercs or pirates at first, but, well, turned out it was geth in origin."

"Saren's little insurrection," Kahoku interjects, and I nod.

"Right. As we kept monitoring it, though, we found something interesting. Activity around uninhabited systems. Ships making FTL jumps into uncharted space or away from known systems. Chatter with military-grade encryption where there's supposed to be no military presence. So naturally, we started tracking it."

"Naval Intelligence actually noticed the same chatter," Bartowski chimes in. "We were in the process of running down the owners of the vessels that disappeared."

"Let me save you the trouble," I tell him with a thin-lipped smile. "They all belong to Corp-Hislop Aerospace."

"The starship manufacturer?"

I nod in response. "The same. It's their dummy corporation in Alliance space, as far as we can tell."

"And my men?" Kahoku asks, impatiently.

"We've been trying to run down their expenses, shipping manifests, everything and anything we can get our hands on. One of their freighters made a brief stop by Edolus. The same ship later registered as docking at multiple stations in the Attican Traverse."

"Then what makes you think my men were lured into a trap?"

I look up at the admiral. "Because they were registered coming into port with an empty cargo hold, having departed sixteen-thousand metric tonnes heavier. They made no stop in between."

Radmanski speaks up, then, from next to the admiral. "The _Normandy_ is already en route, I doubt we can beat her there. Our best course of action is to wait for their report."

"What else do you have, Lieutenant?" Kahoku asks.

I pull one file up on my omni-tool. "We've been looking into possible leaks in the Alliance command structure, but found none so far. However, we found something else that's very interesting. Barla Von, who serves as one of the main contacts with the Shadow Broker aboard the Citadel, has actually not _been_ in contact with the Shadow Broker for a while. Sixteen days, to be exact."

"But there's been chatter between them," the NavInt agent interrupts.

"Chatter, yes," I acknowledge. "But it's not been originating from the same source. It's a good fake, but it's still using falsified transponder codes and signal routers. He's not been talking to the real Shadow Broker. We haven't been able to trace the source yet, but we're hoping to get there soon. But whoever's been playing it is...good."

The XO suddenly looks to the side and touches the comm unit in her earbud. "Admiral, we've cleared the Citadel. The flotilla is in formation and ready for departure."

"Well then," Kahoku leans forward and looks at me. "You said you had a destination?"

"Binthu."


	24. Chapter 24

**Chapter Twenty-Four**

I don't remember much about the sidequests, to be honest, but I remember the UNC: Missng Marines quest chain. Mainly because you find Kahoku's body at the end, and then have to shut down the Binthu facility.

Oh, and the thresher maw on Edolus.

Who could forget that fucking overgrown space-worm?

But fortunately, I don't have to deal with that one, and can leave it in Shepard's capable hands. I'm sure she and Wrex will have a blast with that. Thank the Divine that the Cain hasn't been invented yet. A slight shudder of the deck plating reminds me that the ship has exited the mass relay, and then I look over at the ship's XO whom I've been having lunch with, and the two of us get up, drop our trays in the recycler, and head up to the CIC.

It probably more to do with her keeping an eye on me than any kind of hospitality, really, but I'm not complaining. It beats wandering about an unfamiliar ship all alone.

We even have something of a battle plan, worked out during the two days of transit here.

Considering the fact that I don't really remember much of the mission in the game, coupled with the fact that lately, the canon plot all seems to have gotten shot to hell, anyway, I've just told the admiral and his marines that there's probably a hell of a reception committee waiting for us down there. The _Valor_ is the only ship in the system proper, plus a frigate from her squadron sitting by the relay awaiting the order to jump and bring in the rest of the flotilla from a neighboring system.

With any luck, that'll cut off any reinforcements that Cerberus wants to bring in. All that leaves is cleaning up on the ground. Initial scans of the planet have revealed that there's three bases on the surface, mostly underground with surface-level access. Since Kahoku hasn't been captured yet due to his premature departure from the Citadel, I'm guessing the Cerberus snatch-and-grab was done after he contacted the Shadow Broker. For now, though, we're in orbit around Binthu, and I'm struggling to remember the rest of the mission chain.

Man, I wish I'd paid more attention to it.

The ground teams are readying up, with squads of Kahoku's marines gathering in the drop bay around the _Kodiak_s, arming their ground-pounding equipment for use. Since there's three facilities, there's going to be three groups of us - about a dozen marines per squad. The admiral's orders were simple: clear, bag, and tag.

Of course, considering that this is Cerberus, that's easier said than done.

The thing that has us most worried is that while we have a rough idea of where the bases are located, we don't know how many troops or what kind of armaments they'll have to guard the perimeter. Surface scans haven't proven very fruitful, and the only thing that let us pick up the facilities was the thermal output from their reactors. Which, by the way, are releasing a _ridiculous_ amount of heat when compared to how large I remember the place to be.

Considering the fact that Cerberus has gone through every other possible efford to conceal their presence here, you'd think they'd have invested in a much better thermal management system, or built a set of smaller reactors, or something. Because while radar, lidar, and everything else couldn't find a darn thing, thermal lit up like a bloody Christmas tree.

The only explanation we could come up with for that is that they _want_ us to find them.

Which means they know we're coming.

And unfortunately, that's about all we know. There could be anti-ship missile silos down there for all we know, or concealed surface-to-air batteries. And if Cerberus is down there, then they're not rising to the bait Kahoku laid out by having his fighters fly by overhead.

I'm still in the CIC as we're planning where to deploy the dropships and how to deal with their defenses, when the XO calls out. "Incoming relay activation, Admiral."

"Contact the _Omaha_, bring the fleet to full alert. Any IFF on the runner?"

Radmanski looks up from the tactical display. "Negative, Admiral. She went silent right after she came out. Thermal signature was consistent with a frigate-sized vessel, but the gravimetric signature indicates a cruiser."

Wait a second...I turn to her. "That could've been the _Normandy_."

"It's possible," she acknowledges, "but how would they know to come here?"

"Never underestimate Shepard," I mutter. "Admiral, if I may? They've got to know we're here, and if it's the _Normandy_, then we just got some help."

"And if it's a hostile?" he replies evenly.

"Then we're off no worse than we are now. They know we're here, we know they're somewhere around."

He takes a moment to think it over. "Proceed."

Bringing up the communications controls, I encode a transmission and send it. And then, the waiting game begins.

Finally, two minutes later, the pilot calls out to us. "Incoming hail, tight-beam, audio only. Encryption is standard Alliance issue."

"Go ahead," Kohaku orders. "This is Rear Admiral Kohaku of the Alliance vessel _Valor_. Identify yourself."

"Commander Shepard, _Normandy_, sir. Transmitting IFF."

"We've got it, Admiral. Checks out, it's the _Normandy_," Radmanski confirms from her station.

"Commander, what are you doing here? Your assignment was to the Sparta system."

There's a long pause as Shepard tries to collect her words. "We...found your marines, Admiral. There were complications, and we've got reason to believe they were deliberately lured into a trap. Records were left behind from, well...maybe you should see it in person. Permission to come aboard?"

"Granted. And Commander?"

"Yes, Admiral?"

"Bring your strike team."

"Yes, sir."

T

If Shepard is surprised to see me when she walks into the briefing room with Kaidan, Wrex, Garrus, Liara and Tali in tow, she doesn't show it. Holy crap, she brought _everyone_. Well, everyone minus Ashley, which leaves me wondering where she is. Last I know is that she had to go through another psych eval on the Citadel, and was remanded to the _Normandy_. As they file in and we all stand around the tactical display that currently projects a view of the planet below, she salutes Kohaku, and then introduces her group.

"Admiral," she greets. "My second-in-command on the ground, Staff Lieutenant Alenko, and my ground team, combat specialists Urdnot Wrex, Garrus Vakarian, linguist Liara T'Soni, and technical specialist Tali'Zorah."

The admiral's eyes flicker between me and Shepard for a moment, and he chuckles. "It's good to meet you in person, Commander. You've made quite the impact in the local cluster."

"Thank you, sir."

As Kohaku introduces the marine sergeant who's in charge of the detachment on board the _Valor_, as well as Nadya and Bartowski, I tune him out as I try to remember how this goes. All I can dredge up, however, is that you drop down, fight your way through, find some nasty critters that Cerberus was trying to grow, and then find Kohaku, along with the next clue.

Looks like this is going to go down the old-fashioned way, then.

"Lieutenant?" I blink at the sudden voice next to me, and the _Valor_'s XO is looking at me strangely. "Lieutenant?" she repeats, and I realize that I probably missed out on something.

"Sorry, what were you saying?"

"Do you have any intel on what might be waiting for us down there?" Radmanski repeats.

Oh, right. I pull up the Corp-Hislop shipping manifests from my omni-tool. Knowing where to look and having both SpecOps and Cerberus resources at my disposal for looking into things really helped when I went digging. "I don't know for sure, but we can expect quite a bit of resistance, I'd say. We never really found out what these facilities were used for, except that ships come and go and drop off biological cargo and supplies here. As some of the freighters used by Corp-Hislop have licenses to carry biological specimen, we're thinking maybe some kind of...DNA experimentation?"

Like resurrecting the rachni. In fact, judging from the shipping logs, I'm almost positive it was one of the Corp-Hislop ships that brought the rachni queen egg to Noveria for Binary Helix. They were also supplying ExoGeni on Feros. I'm starting to see a theme here...

"What about the ship that passed by Edolus?" Kahoku asks.

"She made a stop here after refueling, yes. Came back with an empty cargo hold."

Shepard grimaces at the mention of Edolus. "I might have an idea on that," she says.

"What happened there, Commander?" the admiral looks over at her. "What happened to my men?"

"From what we can gather, it was a trap," Shepard begins. "When we dropped, we found remains of armored vehicles and the squad itself, but the damage was not caused by weapons fire. Investigating further, about two klicks from the crash site, we located the distress beacon that had lured them here. And we...we found out what had happened to the rest of the marines, sir."

"Go on."

"Goddamn thresher maw killed them," Shepard says after a long pause, her voice strained. It's one of the few times I've actually heard Shepard swear, and suddenly, I remember that she _is_ a Sole Survivor. Fuck.

On the other hand, somehow I feel sorry for the thresher maw.

Nadya's eyes are wide with shock. "A...a thresher maw?"

Shepard nods, and I can see a brief tremer run up her spine. It's minuscule, and I doubt anyone else noticed. Anyone other than Garrus, I guess, because she's shifting a bit closer to her - consciously or unconsciously, I don't know. "Damn thing was big, too, but we think it was pretty young. Definitely not as large as the one on Akuze."

"The thresher maw's remains indicate that it was not native to the planet," Tali adds as she pulls up her own holo-display. "The dropship's sensor logs were still intact and caught an FTL event at the edge of the system before they went inoperational. Following that vector, the only inhabitable planet in range was here."

"Remains...?" Radmanski asks, incredulously. "You mean, the maw was dead by the time you got there?"

"It was alive," Tali answers, her voice shaking a little. "Very, very alive."

"We killed it. Hah, damn thing didn't stand a chance." Wrex's announcement stuns Kahoku and his people into silence, though it really doesn't surprise me. Especially if Wrex was there.

I just grin at the crazy krogan. "I'm guessing you had fun down there, Wrex?"

He nods enthusiastically, more animated than I think I've ever seen him, and slams his fists together. "It was a great battle! Never thought I'd see a human take one on, even with a tank. It was a fight worthy of a krogan!"

Garrus visibly cringes at the mention of the Mako, and I'm guessing that means Shepard managed to wreck another one. Heh.

"Thank you, Wrex, but I think we can regale them with stories about our kill some other time," the woman in question coughs and politely shuts him up. Wrex grumbles a little, but settles down, and I can't help but chuckle at the way he's almost pouting at being denied the chance to brag about how he and Shepard killed the creature.

"Continue, Tali, please."

The quarian woman nods, and the holo-display morphs to a cross-section of the maw, along with all sorts of biological and genetic data. "As I've said, the thresher maw was not indigenous to Edolus, and all indications point to the fact that it had just recently arrived. Perhaps only within a few days or weeks between the placement of the distress beacon, considering that it had not yet acclimated fully. Couple that with the fact that we estimate it to be relatively young in a thresher maw's usual life cycle, and..."

"You think someone dropped it off?" Agent Bartowski almost chokes on that question.

"All sixteen-thousand tonnes of it," Kaidan confirms, speaking up for the first time.

"Sixteen-" Kahoku looks at me. "It would appear your theory was correct, Lieutenant."

I hate it when I'm right. Still...how the _hell_ does someone just drop off a sixteen thousand ton creature? Especially one as volative as a thresher maw, I mean, come on, for starters, they're friggin' _huge_. And second, even if you could get a freighter to hold one, I doubt it'd cooperate with being stuffed into a cargo hold. A maw banging around inside a ship in space can do some serious damage, I'm sure. "So, Admiral, what's the plan, then?"

He looks over the tactical display for a long moment, before making his decision. "We proceed with the planned operation. Whatever is going on in those facilities, we need to know. If they have the resources to keep an operation of the scale you're suggesting from the Alliance and Naval Intelligence, we need to rectify that. And I don't take kindly to people killing my men, especially not by dropping monstrous creatures on their heads. Someone out there is trying to keep us from finding them. It's time we found out who they are and said hello."

After manipulating the controls of the tactical display, a projection of three _Kodiak_ shuttles replaces the planet, along with a list of names. Kahoku continues outlining his plan as he looks around the room. "We'll make some changes to the original deployment setup. Between our three dropships and the _Normandy_, we can have four full strike teams at our disposal, although, if I'm given to understand correctly, most of your people are specialists, is that right, Commander?"

"Yes, sir," Shepard nods in confirmation. "If we're mounting a full-scale assault, it might be best to attach them to already existing marine units to supplement. We don't have the manpower or firepower to assault a location like this on our own."

"Understandable," the admiral replies neutrally. "You're outfitted for infiltration and covert operations. This is not going to be a reconnaissance. Make sure your people understand that. Right now I have Commander Radmanski, Sergeant Morris, and Lieutenant Grayson here attached to each of my marine squads. Any additional specialists you could bring aboard would be most helpful."

"Of course, sir." Shepard looks over at her squad. "What's the plan?"

Kohaku smiles grimly in return. "Your specialty, Commander. A hot combat drop and frontal assault. Try to keep collateral damage to a minimum; gather all the intelligence we can. I want to know everything we can find on their operations. This...Cerberus organization is going to find out that the Alliance won't tolerate their activities."

I almost wince at that. There's probably going to be hell to pay once Mass Effect 2 rolls around, but I'm not going to worry about that yet. But to be honest, a part of me is looking forward to a little payback at Cerberus for all the shit they've pulled and are going to pull. "Admiral, if I may?"

"Go ahead, Lieutenant."

"From what we have gathered-" well, in a sense, since I kind of, like, work for them, "about Cerberus, they're highly organized, _very_ well funded, and widespread. Their intelligence network is incredibly far-reaching, to the point where they can intercept and falsify transmissions to and from the Shadow Broker. Their resources are considerable, and from what I can gather, they're operating a large number of facilities off the usual flight routes in relatively uncharted space. It would be prudent not to underestimate them."

"So you're saying we'll be facing heavy resistance?" Radmanski asks skeptically. She's not the only one looking at me - Shepard, Kaidan, and Garrus are, too.

"Considering the amount of firepower they managed to smuggle onto Thessia last week, I'd say so. The sheer number of troops aside, they had heavy weapons, armor, even aerial support. We haven't found any surface landing pads yet, but there may be underground hangars. Orbiting ships should probably keep an eye out for escaping vessels. Also, they don't strike me as the type to just let their bases fall into enemy hands. Be prepared for self-destructs, viruses, reactor meltdowns, anything that'll prevent us from capturing this place."

"Sounds paranoid," Bartowski chimes in.

It is, but..."Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you," I reply easily. "I'd also expect highly trained troops, warfare droids, and whatever...experiments they brought along."

"Experiments?"

"You'll see," I finish grimly. That's about the one thing I remember.

Binthu is a Cerberus genetic research facility.

T

Shepard's split up her little group well, I suppose. Kaidan and Wrex ended up with me, Tali and Shepard are going with Nadya, and Liara and Garrus are going to go with Bartowski's squad. It makes sense; every one of Shepard's sub-squads - I'm not stupid enought to think that she wouldn't have her own people looking out for themselves in an emergency - has a biotic and a tech specialist, at least if she includes me in that list. Of course, that leaves no one else aboard the _Normandy_ from the ground team so Joker's going to be our comm contact, flying high-altitude recon and providing air support when needed.

The _Valor_'s drop bay opens slowly, revealing a breathtaking vista of the planet below. I've never been in space - always dreamed of it, but let's face it, there's no way I'd get the chance to go in my time - at least, not in space where I had a view over a planetary sunrise. The one air-drop over Therum doesn't count, Joker just skimmed the top of the atmosphere and dumped us out.

But this...it's something else.

And for all its faults, from up here, Binthu is a beautiful world. Not exactly lush green, but shades of warm mahagony. Wandering, endless deserts interspersed with the occasional green of an oasis. Of course, a _little green_ from up here is probably something the size of the Great Lakes down there.

You haven't seen beautiful until you've seen the sun come up over the horizon of another world, hovering just at the edge of space.

And yet, despite all this beauty, there's this sinking feeling of unease that I just can't shake. Like something's going to go terribly wrong. And the closer we get to launchtime, the stronger it gets.

"Q?" I ask into thin air. I know it's a long shot, but it's the only thing I can think of. Only this time, unlike on Thessia, there's no answer.

"Grayson," Kaidan nods as he walks past me up the ramp of the _Kodiak_ and claps me on the shoulder, idling there for a second and taking in the view.

"You ever get used to it?" I ask him, not sure if I'm referring to the combat drop, or the view outside.

"No. And I hope it never gets old," the staff lieutenant replies easily, and just as ambiguously. "Come on, the Admiral and Commander are waiting."

I'm about to follow him inside when I catch sight of Shepard, about to board her own shuttle. Giving Kaidan a quick pat on the back of his armor and indicating towards our CO, I step off the ramp and jog over.

"Commander!" I call out to her.

She turns around and looks at me, her expression neutral. "Lieutenant. I've got to admit, I'm surprised to find you here. I thought you were on assignment with SpecOps."

"I am...was. It's a long story."

"What about you isn't?" she asks with a slight grin. "Anything I can do for you?"

Come to think of it, why _did_ I come over? "Just...just wanted to let you know to be careful. Never know what's down there."

"Really, Grayson?" she chuckles. "That's it?"

"Well...I, uh, may need a ride after this is over and done with. I was wondering if..."

"You're here without your superiors knowing?" the Commander sounds almost...mischievously amused.

"Oh, they know I'm somewhere, but technically, I'm, well..."

Shepard has no trouble finishing that thought for me. "Here on an unsanctioned mission? Why, Grayson, I'll make a rebel out of you yet."

"Yeah. I came across some information, and I couldn't reach the _Normandy_, so I contacted Admiral Kohaku. It was all very short notice."

"You either really enjoy getting drunk or having difficult conversations in my office, Lieutenant." Shepard shakes her head in amusement. "Look, we're due to return to the Citadel after this, anyway, and if the Admiral isn't, we'd be happy to give you a ride."

"Good...good." I turn to leave, but something prompts me to pause. "Commander? Thanks."

"Is that all?"

I shake my head and produce a data chip. "In case anything happens, Commander. Coordinates to the Mu Relay, tactical data on the Reapers, hopefully everything you need to fight them."

"This..." she looks at me for a moment, then tucks the chip safely away into her omni-tool. "Why give it to me?"

"Just in case something happens." Yeah, I'm fond of backups. Just in case Tim gets trigger-happy. Or I get indoctrinated.

Shepard looks at me evenly, then nods sharply in understanding. "Understood. Although I'm hoping you'll be able to brief me on your findings, yourself when we get back."

"Yeah. Thank you, Commander."

She just nods and vanishes into her dropship, and I head back to mine. A few minutes later, the pilot lifts us off the floor and gently nudges the ship out into space.

The hold of the shuttle is a little cramped with the fifteen of us inside, but the ride is surprisingly smooth as we pass through the planet's thinning atmosphere. All of us are silent, checking our combat gear and going over our assignments quietly as we approach the LZ, and I look over at Kaidan and Wrex, unable to help the little grin that's forcing it's way out.

Despite any bad feelings I may have about going down there, there's a little part of me that's chanting _we've got Wrex, we've got Wrex_. And especially with this particular krogan?

You have to feel sorry for whoever stands in his way.

"Approaching target area. Incoming surface weapons. Y'all better hang on to something back there," the pilot's voice comes over the radio as the shuttle banks hard left. Seconds later, the entire ship rocks forward as anti-air missiles detonate behind us, close enough to singe our exhaust ports.

"Bring us up and around," Kaidan orders from the front of the crew compartment. "Swing us up and mark target locations for our fighters and the _Normandy_."

I'll admit, using a fully-loaded marine shuttle to play Wild Weasel wasn't anything I ever would've considered _sane_, but Shepard did make a good point that it was the only way to draw out the Cerberus emplacements. Sending strike craft on strafing runs wouldn't have done us a lick of good, considering how deeply burrowed in the facilities are, and the only weapons that could've taken out defenses reliably from orbit would've slagged the place to hell and back.

So, she suggested, what better way to locate their defenses than to make them believe they're being assaulted.

Except for the fact that we're _actually_ going to assault them.

Right through that hail of AA fire whipping up from the ground to meet us.

This tactic really shouldn't surprise me, considering Hammer's combat drop into London in Mass Effect 3, but I'd hoped that...nevermind. This is _Shepard_ we're talking about. The woman does crazy on a regular basis. The pilot puts the shuttle into a steep climb, capping out as we exit the outer atmosphere, flipping the ship over, and lets us drop back down, skimming along.

Thank god this planet has a low-density atmosphere, or we'd be skipping off like a rock. That is, of course, still an option, but it means we can come in at a much shallower angle than usual. Gaining airspeed in our free-fall, if everything goes according to plan, we should be catching up to the _Valor_'s fighters right now. Unintelligible chatter fills the radio as the squadron coordinates with the pilot and Joker.

And then, "Prepare for combat landing. Opening hatches in five. Four." The seals on the doors hiss as we all seal our visors.

"Three."

The shuttle's slowing down now, I can make out the slight tremble as its engines reconfigure for vertical thrust.

"Two."

Wrex steps forward, ready to blow the hatch and come out shooting, with Kaidan right behind him.

"One."

I toggle my optical cloak and heft my rifle. A loud thud echoes through the cabin and indicates we dropped the artillery platform carried underslung beneath the shuttle.

"Go."

The doors slide open and the first rank of marines rushes out, an extended fireteam with Kaidan in the lead, followed by Wrex and his six marines. I bring up the rear, sweeping the area through my scope as the marines fan out and look for the surface access to the facility.

The planet's surface is harsh, wind whipping around us from the backwash of the _Kodiak_ dropship, and a thin layer of sand covers what I think used to be a dry lakebed. All around, the scene reminds me of Independence Day, with all the alien ships crashing in the desert, because there's fires burning and wreckage spread around from the airstrike. A few emplacements are still firing, but the gun emplacement we brought with us has already dug its spikes into the ground and the turret is tracking.

A burst of shells later, the rest of the Cerberus defenses falls silent.

"You two," Kaidan gestures at a pair of Kohaku's marines, "stay here, secure the LZ. The rest of you, on me. Grayson, point. Standard recon protocols, report contacts, do not engage." Much to my relief, Kohaku and Shepard agreed that he'd be the best choice to command this particular unit. I shudder to think what kind of orders Wrex would give them, though, if I'm completely honest, there's something...amusing about the thought of Wrex whipping a dozen marines into shape.

"Copy."

"Lieutenant Alenko, over here. Access tunnels and a service elevator."

Kaidan waves the shuttle pilot on before turning his attention back to us, speaking over the radio again, this time on the global frequency connecting us with the _Valor_ and _Normandy_. "_Valor _Actual, this is Akameka One-One, all victors accounted for."

The rest of the teams call in over the next few seconds, as well while the marines set charges to blow the doors off the facility entrances.

"_Valor_, this is Spectre One-One, we're all here."

"_Valor, _ Vector One-One. In position."

That would be Shepard and Garrus, respectively. I have no idea when the hell they worked out these new comm routines, but I'm guessing it makes working with larger squads much easier. It's easy to see where some of them came from. I even get my own callsign, considering that I'm useless in a regular fireteam, and my cloak lets me scout ahead solo easier. _Ghost, _heh. I hope I can live up to the name. Guess Shepard is badass enough to be Price, after all, so it's not that far off. Kohaku doesn't hesitate to follow up with his orders.

"All units, you are clear to proceed."

"You heard him," Kaidan says once the line clicks off. "Blow it."

A little puff of smoke is all that signals that the shaped charges placed by our demo guys did their work, and a second later, I find myself staring down a dark access tunnel with a ladder running down. All right, here goes. Since I'm the guy with the cloak, I'm going first.

Down the rabbit hole we go.

The shaft is pretty long; if I had to guess, I'd say I've been climbing this ladder down for probably three or four floors before I reach the bottom. The intersection that the surface access terminates in branches out to the left and right, but there are no identifiable markings or signs. A quick sweep with my omni-tool indicates no one nearby, and no defenses have come active.

Small blessings, I suppose. Taking a couple of steps down the corridor either way, I return to the ladder and toggle my radio. "Akameka, Ghost. We're clear down here. Be careful coming down."

"Copy, Ghost. Akameka-One coming down your way. Akameka-Two is coming down the service elevator. See if you can link up with them."

The service elevator is a little ways to the north-east, so I follow the corridors down where they lead me. It's weird...there's no one here, and by the time I round the corner to where, according to the surface map, the elevator should be, I'm about ready to freak out, because it's so quiet. The lights are even flickering on and off ominously, and that bad feeling I had since I boarded the dropship is getting stronger.

I let out a sigh of relief I didn't know I had been holding when the platform rumbles into view with Wrex and his four marines. There's just something about this place...

The click of the firing stud is the first thing I hear from behind me, followed by the distinctive rush of a shoulder-mounted rocket or recoilless rifle.

There's not a lot I can do but dive to the side, cloak or no cloak, as Wrex's marines hit the floor. The round slams into the back of the elevator, blooming outwards in a furious explosion of flame and shrapnel. Wrex is already on the move, Charging towards the trooper and completely ignoring the hail of debris showering against the back of his armor.

More footsteps ring out from ahead, and I prop myself up on one knee, rifle extended. A flick of a button releases the scope, causing it to swing to the side and reveal the reflex sight I added on top as I draw a bead on my first target.

By the time I pull the trigger and my target drops to the ground from a round straight through the chest, Wrex has already dispatched his opponent without even firing a shot and is swinging around to bring his shotgun to bear on the new Cerberus troops. The base's alarm goes off, klaxons whining impossibly loud in the enclosed space, and then the surviving marines open up with their assault rifles from behind me.

Between me, the marines, and Wrex, it doesn't take long to clean out the troopers in this section of the facility, but that first rocket impact left two of them wounded, one critically, and the elevator mangled, so Wrex decided to leave the two remaining marines behind with their injured comrades to link up with Kaidan and make it to the surface for medevac.

Of course, that just leaves the big krogan and me to explore the rest of this base, until we run into Kaidan's group. Naturally, this doesn't seem to bother Wrex any, and I guess between him being, well, _Wrex_, and my cloak, there isn't really much short of a small army that could hinder us.

"Akameka Two-One, One-One. Status?" Kaidan's voice comes over our radios.

"Outer perimeter secured. We're working our way inside," Wrex responds. "A few terminals, but the kid hasn't found anything useful yet."

I suppress a brief urge to roll my eyes as Wrex calls me _kid_. I suppose to his ancient krogan-ness I'm young, and...well, actually, I kind of am, I suppose. Ah, what the hell. Speaking of which, Wrex pauses in his conversation with Kaidan, raises his shotgun, and casually blasts yet another one of Cerberus's soldiers out of his way as he advances down the corridor.

"Sorry, had a bug in my way," he rumbles with a chuckle. "Any word from Shepard or the turian?"

"Nothing yet. We haven't run into any resistance yet, surprisingly, so keep your eyes peeled. This smells like a trap."

"Perhaps all the troops ran away when they saw Wrex coming?" I suggest half in jest over the comm line.

There's a brief chuckle from Kaidan and some of the marines. "Maybe," he replies. "But stay on your guard, just the-"

A burst of static interrupts the transmission, and then-

"What the _hell_ is that?"

"Take cover!"

"Watch your left! Left!"

I share a brief look with Wrex, and bring up the map of the complex on my omni-tool, displaying everything both of our teams have mapped so far. Kaidan's not too far from here. "This way," I point down a corridor to our right, and we takes off running.


	25. Chapter 25

**Author's Note:** You know, I had this nice little Christmas interlude planned and begun to write it. Unfortunately, I'm nowhere _near_ that point in the story, so...my apologies, you'll have to make do with a different Christmas gift, and I'll deliver that interlude later. As to what your gift actually is...well, you'll find out on Christmas Eve, hehe.**  
**

**Chapter Twenty-Five**

Both Wrex and I can hear the gunfight coming closer, but neither of us is prepared for the sight that greets us when we finally link up with Kaidan's company. Kaidan's men are pinned down and under heavy fire in a little junction that serves as an intersection between four corridors. Two marines are taking cover behind the edge of the bulkhead frame on the far side, and Kaidan and the rest of his men scattered around the room, scrambing into firing positions that won't expose them to the streams of lead being hurled down towards them. In this close proximity, Kaidan and his men are just barely stayling ahead of the enemy fire by running close and fast enough that they have a hard time tracking them.

And standing in the center of the room, the marines' small-arms fire pinging off their armored hulls, is a pair of YMIR mechs.

They see or hear us coming the moment we see them, and one of the two giant robots lumbers around to bring his weapons to bear on me and Wrex. I flatten myself against the wall immediately as rounds start whizzing through the air, grazing the edge of my shields, while Wrex, with his large krogan frame, has a much harder time finding cover. I wince as his shields spark and collapse, and he takes a round into his armor, but he strides forward anyway until he finds a niche in the wall big enough to hide him. Think the corridors of the SGC under Cheyenne Mountain. Only with steel ribs instead of concrete.

"You having a party and didn't invite us?" I call over the radio. "I'm hurt!"

"I was about to, when these two crashed the party," Kaidan replies, his rifle resting on top of a console and firing blindly in the general direction of the YMIR bots.

"Now that's just rude."

I can practically hear Kaidan's brief grin. "I tend to agree. You bring any party favors to teach them some manners?"

I root through my utility belt and realize with a grimace that I don't really have anything in the way of high explosives. All I've got is a couple of breeching charges that aren't even going to penetrate their shields. "That's, ah, that's a negatory." I look up, just in time to see rounds sparking off the steel arch I'm hiding behind. "On the other hand, at least only _one_ of them's shooting at you now."

We _did_ bring some heavy ordnance. In fact, a couple of the marines brought missile launchers. The problem is that Wrex and me sent ours back, and Kaidan's are pinned down and can't get a shot. If we could draw fire from one, or turn it around...

"Wrex," I call over to my partner, who's growling in frustration as he waits for his shields to recharge.

"What?"

"If I overload the shields on that one, think you can take him?"

The krogan eyes me for a second, before one of his eyes swivels to glance at the YMIR. A grin starts spreading on his face. "Yeah."

"Make sure you keep him between you and the other 'bot. No point in having you wreck one only to get turned into a sieve."

He grunts for a moment, and I look around the corner. There's no real break in fire because the YMIRs are just putting rounds down the corridors to keep us suppressed, making my cloak completely useless. Considering their massive heatsinks and ammo supplies, there's no doubt they can keep us pinned here for a very long time. If Kaidan was here on my side of the junction, we could probably keep one of the YMIRs pinned between his shockwaves and my overloads, since Wrex's warp is ineffective against shields. But he's on the other side of the YMIRs, dealing with his own lead-spewing problem.

Leaning over, I fire off an overload from my omni-tool, just barely managing to drop back into cover as the return fire starts drilling into my shields, dropping them to almost half for the second or two I was exposed. A glance at the tactical display of my omni-tool confirms, however, that the YMIR's shields aren't down, and are recharging quickly. Quicker than mine, at any rate.

The charge bar on the omni-tool reaches full, and I pop out of cover again to fire off another one. This time, my shields are almost down, but so are the YMIR's.

Fuck. At this rate, I'm going to have to throw out a third overload, and my shields can't take that kind of punishment. To make matters worse, that particular YMIR has zeroed in on my position, and while he's still indiscriminately spraying lead down the corridor, he's adjusted and spraying more my way than towards Wrex. Not that there's much of a difference in these corridors.

But apparently, that's enough for that krazy krogan who bursts out of cover, Charging at the giant mech with a roar that shakes the tunnel. He shoulder-rams it, causing the mech to stumble backwards, then grabs its gun arm and _headbutts_ it.

Holy freakin' fuck. He headbutted a mech, and the mech _lost_.

There's actually a sizeable dent in the YMIR's chestplate, and Wrex, both arms on the YMIR's gun arm, lifts _up_, spraying bullets all around the room, but away from me. There's an opening, all right.

Leaning out of cover, I reach around and unfurl my rifle, bringing it to bear and zeroing in on the mech's head. For some reason, idiots still seem to put primary processing and optical faculties in exposed appendages.

But I'm not complaining.

A swift pull of the trigger, and my high-powered sniper round blasts through the YMIR's weakened shields and rips through the lightweight plating on its bulbous head. With a mechanical groan, the giant killer robot ceases to function as its secondary subprocessors try to take over.

Before its failsafes can kick in and power it back up, Wrex lowers his head, steps forward, and then somehow, _someway_ manages to lift the armored mech up and throws it into the other one.

Holy.

Fucking.

_Hell_.

Okay, note to self. Don't piss off Wrex. Like, ever.

The second YMIR stumbles as something really big impacts it from behind, and before it can right itself and reacquire targets, Kaidan and two of his marines lean out of cover to make full use of its distraction. Between a flash of biotic discharge and two rocket-propelled grenades, its shields collapse and one of the shaped charges breaches the chestplate and explodes the torso, showering us all in debris. Fortunately for Wrex, who was closest to it, the body of the mech he'd thrown shields him from the majority of the blast wreckage.

Of course, knowing him, he'd probably _enjoy_ getting hit with it and having the scars to show for it.

Now that the mechs are down, Kaidan and his men sweep into the junction and take up firing positions, and I head over to meet with him and Wrex. "Man," I tell him as I carefully step over the slightly burning remains of the YMIR that got hulled by an RPG, "what'd you ever do to piss them off? That's a hell of a lot of firepower stuck in one corridor."

"I agree," he chuckles wryly.

"Means they're guarding something," Wrex grunts and unlimbers his shotgun. "Which way did they come from?"

"Down there," Kaidan points in the opposite direction of where his men had been pinned down. "We were clearing these hallways when they just stepped out down there and started shooting."

There's nothing unusual about the end of the corridor he's indicating. It's just a regular hallway, like all the others we've passed so far, and terminates in a T-junction. "You call the Commander and Vakarian yet? See if they've run into similar defenses?"

"Not yet. Haven't heard from-" he pauses and cocks his head to listen. "Comms are down," he finally says quietly.

"Jammers?"

"Likely."

Looking down where the YMIRs came from, I get a sinking feeling about this. "We've got point-to-point, right?"

"Short range comms are intact," he confirms. "But something's jamming planetwide."

"Well," I mutter, toggling my cloak, "time to take a look-see, I guess."

T

We're all sticking together now. Considering the fact that Wrex and me already sent our last two marines back, and one more got wounded in the firefight with the YMIRs, we just don't have the manpower to split up into fireteams.

Well, not to the point where we want to risk running into another pair of giant killer robots as undermanned as we are, anyway.

But as we continue moving deeper into the facility, going down service elevators and maintenance shafts, I can't help but think that something's very, very wrong here, because other than the couple of Cerberus troopers when we first entered and those two YMIRs, there hasn't been any opposition whatsoever. It's really weird, because Cerberus isn't really known for leaving its bases understaffed or underdefended.

I'm walking maybe thirty meters ahead of the main group, with Wrex a little closer to me, since my cloak makes me the ideal point-man, I suppose. And every corner I turn, I'm almost expecting to run smack into something nasty. A Cerberus trooper, a combat mech, a giant space alien.

A freaking exomorph.

It's almost like Noveria all over again.

But there's nothing. Just my quiet footsteps echoing down the abandoned concrete hallways and the occasional flickering lights.

Speaking of flickering lights...

With an electric _pop_, the lights go out.

_All_ of them.

And then, slowly, as if heaving and straining to do so, the red emergency lights come on, illuminating the floor a little. Just enough for you not to trip, but not nearly enough to see what's going on further down the hall. Great.

"Hey, Eltee, you turn the lights out on me?"

Kaidan's hushed voice comes back over the radio. "Negative, Ghost. We're just as much in the dark back here. What do you think happened?"

"I have no clue." I look around me for a bit, then activate the photomultiplier in my visor, causing the room to look a little brighter, but turning it into something of a black-and-white. Kind of like turning up the brightness and gamma in a game when it's completely dark. There's not even markings on the wall. How the hell does the base personnel not get lost?

Well, shit's officially gone from creepy to creepier.

"Warning, containment failure. Warning, containment failure."

I tap my radio again with shaking hands as the mechanical announcement comes over the PA. "Uhh...Eltee, please tell me you touched something and can un-touch it?"

"Afraid not." Kaidan sounds just as confused as me, though not nearly as spooked.

Then again, he doesn't have to take point in a dark underground facility that has just told you something breached out of containment. And let me tell you, in the Mass Effect universe, if something's in containment and underground, there's a _damn_ good reason for it.

And then the emergency lights go out.

Fuck.

This time, I don't even get to raise my hand to the radio before Kaidan's voice comes crackling over the comm. "That wasn't us, either. Hold position."

A second later, footsteps echo behind me, and Kaidan, Wrex, and the rest of the squad come out of the shadows, their helmet lights casting searching beams into the darkness around us. I turn off my visor's night vision. I'm not sure we should be using flashlights, actually, but if there isn't enough light for the NVGs, then I suppose that's our only choice. It's either that, or sit in the pitch dark.

"All right," Kaidan finally says after consulting his omni-tool. "Surface scans picked up an underground thermal sig. Residual heat still shows up on scanners, so if we can get the reactor going and restore power, we should be in business."

"We should see about establishing communications with the other groups and the ships," I add, idly fiddling with my own omni-tool and the sensor settings. "So far we haven't got a clue whether we're being jammed locally, or if everything including surface-to-orbit is crippled. We don't even know if any ships left the bases so far."

The Staff Lieutenant nods in my direction and swings his flashlight around. "Good idea. Whatever is jamming us is still active, despite the lack of power. Which means there's got to be a backup power supply around."

I have a sinking feeling that I'm forgetting something here, but for the life of me I can't think of it. I just hope it doesn't come back to bite us in the ass later.

"We should also investigate what they were keeping under containment here," Kaidan finishes.

Oh. Shit.

That's right, Cerberus was experimenting with shit here. Like, rachni and thorianized shit, if I remember right. There's no way I can warn Kaidan and let him know what we're about to run into, but from what I remember from the actual mission, there weren't too many specimen. Forcing my heart rate to calm down, I can't help but double-check my immediate surroundings and scanner. Okay, calm down. It's just one or two of them. There's six of us. Even worst case, we still outnumber them like three to one.

We stick close together as we continue shuffling down the corridors towards the cooling main reactor, and all the while I can't help but wonder why it shut down. It was working perfectly fine for a while...I guess it's possible that it was on a timer, or something. But that, along with the fact that we're trudging along and haven't run into anyone - or any_thing_ since those YMIRs - has me really paranoid right now.

"Why do you think they all left?" I hear one of the marines ask quietly as we clear a barracks room that housed troops. Bunks, footlockets, even a low table with an ashtray and cards on the table. Looks like someone left in the middle of a game.

"Maybe they saw us coming?" another replies just as quietly.

It's possible, I mean, it's not like you can hide the energy signature of a mass relay going off. Or the big, honking cruiser in orbit. But _where_ did they go? There clearly were people here at one time, and the fleet hasn't detected any ships leaving the surface, nor any surface transports. And we haven't found any transit tunnels.

I clear another corner; there's a large, secured double-door down the hall. I can't quite make out the writing on it from a distance and in the dim light of our torches, but as I get closer, the lettering resolves itself.

"Got the reactor control room. Door's closed but not locked. I think we can force it open."

As the marines and I take our positions in a perimeter around the door, Wrex simply steps up, holsters his shotgun, and wedges his talons in between the two massive steel plates. He grunts, and I can see him straining even under his armor, but with a gargantuan heave and a metallic grind, they begin to open.

As soon as there's a big enough opening to stick a gun through, Kaidan and I turn around and peer inside while Wrex keeps forcing the doors. A very loud minute and a half later, there's a two meter gap, and all of us quietly slip inside.

It takes me some looking around and cross-referencing with my omni-tool's database to find out that the reactor is a standard radiation-less fusion plant. Jumpstarting the diagnostics consoles with a charge from a spare power cell, lines of error messages start scrolling across the screen. They're all gibberish to me, so I call up a schematic of the facility and an operations log.

"Eltee," I call over. "The system went into shutdown because something was disturbing the reaction. Fuel rods retracted, but something's still wrong. One of them's jammed half-way."

"Can you reactivate it?"

Considering the fact that the reactor went into shutdown for a _reason_, I'm not sure I should, but unless we want to sit around in the dark some more, I guess I don't really have much of a choice, huh? Wait. "What about emergency power?" I ask back. It was just running for a bit, before it gave out.

"Sanders looked at it already. It looks functional, but the controls are non-responsive."

"Great." Looking down at the control system for the reactor again, I can't help but wonder what would've happened had I stayed in bed the morning I ended up in this fucked-up universe. Of course, considering the fact that I wasn't actually _in_ bed that night, and it wouldn't have done me a lick of good anyway, that's somewhat of a moot point.

Kaidan, though, at least seems just as worried about messing with a faulty fusion reactor as I am. "Can you tell what exactly caused the shutdown?"

"I think so." Tapping around on the interface, I haplessly stumble through the menus. Kind of like using Windows 8 for the first time without having a clue as to what you're doing. There, I think that's it. A schematic of the reactor comes up, with a red section along the ignition chamber. "Looks like something breached ignition. System detected the breach and turned itself off to avoid an accident."

"You think it's safe to turn on?"

"Well, according to this, the ignition system's still working perfectly fine, we've got fuel, and there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it. The reactor went into a failsafe diagnostic mode the moment it was damaged due to power loss in the ignition beam, but there doesn't seem to be any actual damage to the internals."

"Power loss?"

"Yeah. Beam intensity fluctuated. Almost like something got in the way of it." I look up at Kaidan, and I can tell we're both thinking the same thing.

He grimaces slightly. "We need those lights. Can you start her up?"

"I think so. But we all better stand the hell back."

The entirety of the reactor assembly is laid out on the deck below us, and we're in something like a control tower-type room that overlooks it. The moment I start powering on the system, the massive capacitors powering the ignition laser hum to life, and seconds later, a brilliant emerald green beam shoots out from a chamber on the side.

Huh. 532nm lasers, didn't think they were still in use. Seconds later, there's a flash of light as the fuel pellets ignite and begin fusing, and the reactor starts to power up. Indicators come online, and so far everything's looking good. The lights automatically come back on as power returns to the facility, allowing us to take a look around.

I peer down into the reactor room through the glass window, and almost wish I hadn't.

Staring right back at me is a thorian creeper.

And he's got friends. A lot of friends.

T

_I should've stuck with Shepard_, is the thought that runs through my mind as the six of us beat a hasty retreat through the Cerberus base. On the bright side - quite literally, actually - now that the lights are working, out-running the thorian creepers is actually not that hard.

No, what makes it hard is the fact that there's so _many_ of the damn things. They're crawling out of the air vents and from the lower levels and elevator shafts, almost like the rachni did on Noveria. After shooting the first few of them in the reactor room, we realized that those weren't the only ones very quickly when they started swarming us, and we've been on the retreat ever since, looking for a way out or a fortified position.

Mostly for a way out, though, because every position we've tried to hold has eventually been overrun by creepers pouring out of the smallest nooks and crannies that you could think of. How the frak did Cerberus get a hold of so many of them, and how in the living daylights were they thinking of controlling them all? We're running all the way back the way we came to the service elevator that Wrex's group originally came down on, firing over our shoulders the entire time.

Creepers aren't exactly the most durable of creatures. They're not naturally armored, and they're mostly soft tissue. That's not the problem.

No, the problem is they're almost zombie-like, what with their shriveled and shrunken skin, their empty eyesockets, their moaning slow walk, and the way they absorb rounds like there's no tomorrow before dropping. They're soft, all right, so soft, in fact, that most of our rounds go right _through_ them, causing very little damage.

We've found it more effective to aim for joints and blow them apart. They may not feel the pain, but running after us is a whole lot harder if one of their legs has been blown off at the knee. On the flip side, taking our time for such aimed shots is...well, it's not really possible right now. I unclip another frag grenade from my belt, knock the arming stud off against the wall, and toss it behind me as we round a corner.

A dull thud rings out behind us as the three-second fuse lights the frag, spraying the corridor and the pursuing creeps with shrapnel. It won't stop them, but at least it'll slow down the ones behind us. Finally, we reach the service elevator and Kaidan slams his armored fist down on the call button.

Unfortunately, this is a T-junction, and we quickly set up firing positions, with the marines dropping to a knee in front, their assault rifles at the ready. We can hear the creepers coming slowly, and suddenly, gunfire erupts from my left as I'm pointing my pistol down the way we'd just come from as the soldiers open up, the order to fire at will long since given.

Lingering for a second on the corridor to make sure nothing is coming down that way for now, I reach for another grenade on my belt. Fingers brush against them as I count silently how many are left. Three. Two incendiary and one frag, from the feel of it. Three grenades to last us until the elevator gets here. I opt for an incendiary this time. No point in risking showering us with shrapnel in these straight corridors.

The two marines are pouring fire down the hallway until their rifles cycle and vent, trading off so one is firing while the other is venting. Despite the near-constant barrage, the creepers are still advancing. Twenty meters out. I strike the head of the grenade against the wall again and rear back, hurling it as far as I can.

It bounces off the concrete floor with a metallic clink and rolls another meter or so before the fuse runs out and sprays molten copper across the corridor, cutting through creepers and setting others on fire. Without waiting for an order, I lift my pistol with my other hand and start firing.

"Any luck on those comms?" I ask Kaidan over the whine of our weapons.

"A little," he announces as he begins hurling biotics down the other way. Looks like the creepers are closing in on us. "I'm mostly getting static, but I think they're picking us up."

Striking my last incendiary, I spin and chuck it down the other way, my trigger finger never pausing until my pistol cycles. "Good, because we're going to have to get out of here in a hurry."

"No argument there."

I grab my last grenade - a frag, this time, and reset the timer to five seconds, the highest it'll go. "Here," I shove it in Wrex's hands. He doesn't need me to tell him anything else to know what I want him to do.

Without a word, he strikes it against his armor and hurls it down the central corridor with an almighty roar, his shotgun up and tracking almost as soon as the grenade leaves his hand. It sails through the air much further than any throw I could've mustered, so far, in fact, that it explodes in mid-air almost at the other end of the hallway, well away from us.

And still they keep on coming.

They're so close now I can flip the laser sight on my pistol on with ease, taking my time to line up shots to vulnerable limbs. This close, it's really hard to miss anything, but even if I blow apart their kneecaps, they keep on coming. Headshots are completely ineffective. It'll stagger them, but the rounds just go right through, and they keep on coming.

Wrex's shotgun opens up behind me with its thunderous report, and amongst all of us, it's probably the single most effective weapon, because every time Wrex pulls the trigger, a handful of creepers blow apart into pieces.

With a quiet ding that's almost lost in the din, the elevator arrives. It's one of those open platform type elevators, and even before Kaidan can give the order, we all shuffle back, forming a tight circle pouring out fire at the creepers that are advancing on us, a little island of gunbarrels firing on full auto, heedless of the need to vent, because if there's a time for suppressive fire, it's _now_.

The last marine steps into the elevator, and I mash the button to take us to the surface as one by one the rifles click and begin to vent. Wrex snarls and headbutts a creeper that got too close so hard its head flies off, and then rams the butt of his shotgun into its still-standing and twitching torso, propelling it off the elevator. Hands start clawing at us, and suddenly, it's a melee as the elevator jerks and starts moving.

A hand reaches for my left arm, and on instinct I spin around, smashing my elbow into whoever was standing behind me. It's a creeper, unfazed by the blow to its head. There's no way I'm going to risk firing at this close range, not when I know my round is going to go through it and hit someone else. As it swipes at my helmet, I lean back and smash it across the face with the pistol in my free hand, again and again until it stops moving and my racing pulse slows down as I realize the combat around us is pretty much over.

Looking down at the remains of the creeper, I can't help but wince. I did a hell of a number pistol whipping its head, because it's a caved in, mangled and bloody mess right now. It's not human, it's not human, it's not...hell, it's not even sentient. Yeah, let's go with that. It's not sentient, it's not sentient. That sentiment is actually aided quite a bit by the fact that, while it's vaguely human in form, it resembles a dried up kumquat more than an actual body. Still gross.

Forcing myself to remember what it is, I poke it with my foot and something catches my eye. "Eltee," I call out. "You're gonna want to see this."

Hanging from the creeper's dessiccated, bony frame are tatters of a uniform I vaguely recognize, but the symbol hanging on a piece of fabric over its left shoulder is unmistakable.

The black and gold of Cerberus.

T

Once we're back on the surface, communications are thankfully back intact, leaving Kaidan to speculate that it was a localized jamming field. After hopping back into our _Kodiak_ shuttle and contacting Admiral Kohaku and informing him of our findings - and with orders to bring back the creeper corpse I bashed to death, because apparently it's the most intact - we're informed that Garrus's team has already reported back.

They ran into broken containment areas that, at least according to the data logs, once contained rachni, but the majority of the facility database was purged. They did run into some pretty heavy resistance, but they made it out with only two wounded, but no useful intel.

Shepard's squad, on the other hand, hasn't reported in.

After hearing that, me, Wrex, and Kaidan look at each other, and I just _know_ we're all thinking the same thing.

The ride to the third base is uneventful, and the moment the doors open, the three of us step out to meet up with Garrus. Liara is going to return with our two shuttles with the wounded, since she took a couple of rounds that breached her armor during the fighting.

But hey, it's four of us, and Shepard's already cleared the way.

And we have Wrex.

"Down there," Garrus indicates an open access hatch. "Should be easy to find her."

"Just follow the trail of destruction," I mutter, but over the radio it comes across loud and clear, drawing an amused chuckle from the turian and Shepard's second-in-command. Even Wrex grins behind his helmet.

"Down the rabbit hole once more, then." I look at Garrus and Kaidan. "So, who's going first?"

With a slightly annoyed rumble, Wrex peers down, then just steps forward and _drops_ down the access hatch, ignoring the ladder altogether.

There's a slight thud as he lands, a metric ton of muscle and armor, and the three of us _sane_ people shrug in unison and clamber down the regular way. Not the insane-krogan-jumping-down-twenty-feet way. Wrex, of course, is fine when we get to the bottom and close the hatch overhead, but all three conspicuously ignore the crater left in the concrete floor as he does the krogan impression of tapping his foot.

Kaidan just chuckles and checks his omni-tool. "We're cut off from the surface again."

"Probably something in the soil, then," I hazard. Either that, or they lined the base in something that interferes with communications.

"We haven't detected any surface-side comm relays," Garrus adds. "Wonder how they stay in touch with anyone else. Or each other."

"Try and reach Shepard," I suggest.

"Any Spectre, this is Akameka, do you read? Repeat, Spectre, do you read?"

A few seconds of silence later, Kaidan frowns and glances down at his omni-tool. "We _should _have short-range comms. Either she's busy, or she can't hear us."

"Well," Wrex ambles down one of the corridors that's suspiciously pockmarked with impacts and blackened from flame, "then we find her. The old fashioned way."

With a shrug, I exchange a glance with Kaidan and toggle my cloak. "All right, here we go again."

This is gonna be so _not_ fun. Let's hope Shepard didn't run into anything like we did, although if she has, I'm inclined to feel sorry for the creepers.

You know, we were only half kidding when we made that joke about being able to follow Shepard by just following the bodies, but as we continue sneaking down into the depths of the facility - with me cloaked on point again, I _really_ need to do something about that, I hate being point - we realize just how true that statement was. That woman leaves a trail of destruction in her wake like Hänsel and Gretel left breadcrumbs. Unlike the other two bases, this one was actually being defended by Cerberus, and everywhere we go there's broken and shot up bodies of troopers, combat mechs, even the odd YMIR or two.

And we haven't found a single one of Kohaku's marines, and the shuttle topside hasn't reported anyone coming back. Considering the sheer amount of opposition down here that Shepard's wrecked, we can only assume that she hasn't even had a single casualty yet. And that is impressive and scary at the same time. Then again, she's got Tali with her. And she's _crazy_. As I step over a wrecked LOKI, I can't help but think _woe befall any who stand in that woman's way_.

We've been walking for a while now, and a glance at my omni-tool confirms that we're way deep into the facility by now. We've long passed the reactor room where we stopped in the first base - necessitated by having to run for our lives by a horde of thorian creepers - and heading deeper still. Probably towards the containment area, if the layout of this base is identical to the others. Either that, or the command center.

And the bodies keep piling up.

Man, it looks like Shepard fought a small friggin' _war_ in here.

And then a little green dot on my map projection starts flickering on, not too far away from us. I tap my radio. "I got something. Looks like a _Normandy_ locator beacon. It's one of ours, looks like, two-hundred fifty meters ahead and to the right."

"Copy that. Lead the way."

Thankfully, there's neither rachni, nor thorianized shit, nor anything else in our way as we continue on our merry way. Shepard really is anything but subtle. I mean, the woman leaves doors in her wake that are blasted open, for crying out loud. And she's got _Tali_ with her. If anyone can hack those freaking locks, it's her. But I can just see the Commander pushing on that remote detonator of hers with a gleeful smile as she blows them open with some kind of explosive instead, claiming that hacking would take too long.

Wrex just chuckles the entire way. Of course he'd find that amusing, and even Kaidan lets out a sigh that's somewhere between amusement and vexation as we pass probably the tenth mangled bulkhead.

We emerge from the central corridor into a T-junction that is curved away from us, and ground-penetrating radar indicates that it's bending around some kind of large circular room. There's several access doors to the chamber spread around, and I halt my progress after checking around either corner. "We've got four entry points, if this is circular," I inform them quietly. "And there's quite a few obstructions in that room. Could be command."

"All right," Kaidan looks down either way. "Wrex, Vakarian, take the closest. Grayson, we're on the far right. Standby on position."

The four of us move out, and from here I can't see Kaidan anymore as he disappears around the curvature of the wall. I'm in luck, too, because the lock is inactive. "Ready," I click over the radio.

"Ready," Wrex echoes a bit later, leaving me to assume that Garrus had to fiddle with the lock first, since they were closest to their door.

I can almost hear Kaidan counting down silently. "Go."

On that single word, Kaidan and Wrex hit the door controls and step into the room, weapons at the ready.

The chamber is large - probably fifty meter in diameter or so, almost factory-sized, and the outside is ringed with inactive consoles, while the center is dominated by a large holo display that is currently inactive. From the inside, I can tell the room isn't circular at all, but tapers off on the far side. And we're staring right into the barrels of Shepard's marine squad while Nadya, Shepard, and Tali are huddled over a console on said far side of the room.

"We're friendly, we're friendly," Kaidan announces as he turns on the speakers on his helmet and I drop my cloak.

Shepard looks up and waves at the marines to stand down. "What are you doing here?"

"Akameka and Vector finished their sweeps of the other facilities," Kaidan replies, snapping off a brief salute as I drop my cloak. "We'd lost contact with you, and _Valor_ informed us that you hadn't reported in. The Admiral decided that it would be prudent to send support and recovery forces, if necessary."

"I see." Shepard waves us over to where Tali's working on hacking into a console. "We found this area about an hour ago. It's some kind of command and control center, but there's more to it."

"Scans indicate that there's a number of containment and stasis pods over there," Nadya adds, pointing to the central dais. "A series of kinetic barrier projectors runs the length of the central area, certainly enough to hold specimen of an unknown origin."

I grimace slightly, thinking back to the thorian creepers. "We found some _specimen_, all right. Looks like they've been playing around with some really nasty shit."

"You'll have to explain that one later," Nadya says with a small smile. "Right now, we're more concerned with gaining access to this facility's data archives. It's still active and intact, but..."

"There's more firewalls here than on a volus's bank account," Tali complains from underneath the console.

I lean over to look at what she's doing. "Want some help?"

"Yeah. I've got power back to this system, but it won't let me access anything."

Shepard looks up from where she's been talking to Kaidan and Garrus. "Commander Radmanski, take Wrex and two of your men to the surface. Get in contact with the _Valor_ and give them a sitrep. Stay with the shuttle, we'll come calling if we need your help."

"Yes, Commander." Without a second thought, the _Valor_'s XO turns around, gathers her men, and marches out. She pauses briefly in the doorway. "I'll leave someone inside so we can keep in touch. If you find anything..."

"We'll relay it to you. Thank you, Commander." Shepard nods at her. The two of them seem to understand each other pretty well without needing a lot of words. It makes sense, we need a line of communication to the fleet, and if good old human-powered relay is what's needed, the I suppose that's it.

In the meantime, I bring up my omni-tool's Cerberus hacking suite and try to link up with the console. Even with it running, the Cerberus encryption takes a while to break, and I take to sitting around and watching the room while the codebreaker does its work. It never really ceases to amaze me how this actually goes about its business. It's certainly not like the old days - well, my day - where you needed a degree in cryptography or advanced mathematics to break a cipher. Quantum computing made spinning through variables for something like 128-bit encryption really a piece of cake, so most of it comes down to how much processing power you have, how long the password or encryption key is, and the operator's ability to bypass security measures.

Tali leans over and runs her hands over her own interface, probably trying a different approach to breaking encryption, and, but a few minutes later, both our omni-tools emit a victorious beep, and the console powers up its holographic display.

I freeze almost immediately at what I'm seeing. Shepard, Garrus, Kaidan and Tali all seem mildly interested, but then again, they haven't seen anything to let them know of the importance of what we're looking at. "Commander..." I mutter half in shock and half in terror.

It's a star chart detailing fleet movements and logistics. But they're not Cerberus fleet movements.

They're _Saren's_.

And he's headed for the Virmire.

Momentarily shoving aside the questions as to how Cerberus got a hold of Saren's flight plan, I know exactly what that means. Saren's ready. He knows where the Mu Relay is, and the endgame's begun.

Shepard must have a sixth sense for something like this, because she doesn't even have to look at me to know somethng's wrong. "What is it, Lieutenant?"

"We've got to go. We've got to go _now_!" I tell her urgently. If this map is correct, then Saren's made his move. _Sovereign _is underway, in transit between Virmire and the Mu Relay.

"Go where?" she seems genuinely confused.

I pull her aside briefly. "A ship. _Sovereign_ isn't a space station or a base, it's a _ship_. It's Saren's flagship, and he's moving her to Virmire right now. We need to _go, _Commander. We have to intercept him!"

She looks at me deeply, as if to gauge whether or not I'm serious, and then nods curtly. "Tali, Grayson, do a full data dump. You have ten minutes, then we're out of here. I need to talk to Admiral Kohaku."

As I stare at the map, my fingers unconsciously typing away at my omni-tool's interface, a fragment of a plan starts to form. We know where the Mu Relay is. We know where Saren's headed. Maybe...maybe we can stop him from ever reaching the Citadel.

But is that really such a good idea? I stare around the compound. So much has already changed. If _Sovereign_ never attacks the Citadel, if the Council isn't in danger of being lost and Shepard has the choice of saving them, what will humanity's role in the coming years be? Will they still get a Council seat? Will the Council shove this entire matter under the carpet, pretending it never happened, aided by the fact that there's no Reaper debris to show for? Will that eventually leave the galaxy unprepared for their return?

Fuck.

I hate my life.

"What's this?" Tali's voice brings me out of my thoughts as she taps away at the console. Suddenly, a stasis pod slides up in the center of the dais in the middle of the room, and the containment kinetic barrier generators start humming with restrained energy as the system powers up.

We all turn towards it, weapons raised, when the door slides open, and the last person we expected to see tumbles out, coughing and fumbling around blindly from hibernation sickness.


	26. Chapter 26

**Author's Note: **Merry Christmas everyone! Hope y'all have a good time and are spending it with friends, family, and otherwise people who are important to you.

**Chapter Twenty-Six**

The return trip to the _Valor_ is made in silence as we all mull over the shock of finding a copy of Saren's intinerary and the unlikely presence of his houseguest. I glance over at Shepard, who seems torn between anger and confusion. Makes sense, the last time she saw her was on the Citadel, right before the _Normandy_ departed for Feros. What she's doing _here_, of all places, in a Cerberus facility, I don't know.

But I'd sure like to.

I mean, what the hell? She's of no interest to Tim, never really was according to the game. But that whole thing is just another layer on top of my original concerns about what to do about Saren and _Sovereign_. We've got to stop him and that overgrown space-squid of his, but that either means risking a large amount of collateral damage and casualties, or risking the Council not taking the threat seriously. Well, less seriously than they would otherwise.

Not to mention the fact that without needing to be saved, the Council probably won't give humanity a seat.

I hate interstellar politics.

Once we're all aboard the cruiser and it's left the system, we rally with the rest of the fleet, and Kohaku calls a war council, because even he can tell that some serious shit is afoot by now. So after a shower and getting my information in order, I head out of my temporary quarters aboard the _Valor_ and towards the conference room. And I still am no closer to figuring out what to do about this whole mess.

"Lieutenant, good of you to join us."

I nod at Kohaku, Shepard, and Nadya as I enter to war room. Aside from them, Garrus, Tali, and Agent Bartowski are present, and the holo table in the center is shimmering with data ripped straight from the Cerberus archives. What gives me pause, though, is the file labeled _Sovereign_ that's open and displaying a grainy image of the Reaper himself, along with whatever technical data Cerberus has collated over the last few weeks, which isn't much.

With a brief gesture from Kohaku, the war room's door locks and seals itself, and the lights dim slightly. "Now that we're all here," he begins gravelly, "I would like to congratulate you all on a job well done. Three hostile facilities cleared, the intelligence you gathered, and the evidence of...experimentation that was uncovered will go a long way to convince the Council that the threat is real. Unfortunately, as much as I'd like to leave you to bask in your accomplishments for a while, we cannot afford the time."

Nadya taps the floating image of _Sovereign_, a dark black shape barely highlighted against the darkness of space, probably captured by some unfortunate passing vessel. "This has been referred to in the archives as _Sovereign_. We're unsure as of yet what exactly it is, but it's connected to Saren Arterius. We don't know yet if these facilities below are affiliated in any way with him, but while unlikely, it is possible."

"They're not." I interrupt her, drawing everyone's attention to myself. Shaking my head briefly to collect my thoughts, I continue to explain. There's no time for beating around the bush, we've got to get moving towards Virmire...or the Mu Relay. If Saren gets through to the Citadel and Shepard isn't there to stop him...I don't even want to think about it.

Suppressing a brief shudder, I continue. "I've been tracking the group that operates this facility. They're a pro-human terrorist organization going by the name Cerberus. While they've done a lot of things over the past few weeks, I think they're more interested in _how_ Saren acquired the technology he has, rather than ally with him."

"What makes you so sure, Lieutenant?" Kohaku asks.

"Saren has his own agenda. Commander Shepard has been running around the galaxy for the past few weeks trying to uncover it, but it basically boils down to the fact that our rogue spectre believes that he needs to somehow facilitate the return of an ancient machine-race called the Reapers that will bring about the destruction of all known life in the galaxy."

"It's true, Admiral," Shepard confirms after he stares at her somewhat incredulously, and she crosses her arms. "The _Normandy_ has been trying to find means to convince the Council that the Reapers are a credible threat. We also believe they are responsible for the fall of the prothean civilization some fifty-thousand years ago. Something on that scale is not to be taken lightly."

"No, of course not," the admiral agrees. "But would you care to enlighten us how those two are linked?"

"I can't even begin to imagine how they obtained a flight itinerary for Saren's flagship," I tell them with a wry grimace. "Probably launched a suicide probe to slap a tracker on it, or something. Cerberus doesn't...exactly place a high value on life, if the mission can benefit from sacrifice. SpecOps believes that Cerberus's interest in Saren's activity is the Reaper tech he's acquired, and especially _this_." I point to the image of the giant squid-like Reaper warship.

"What exactly are we looking at?"

Everyone in the room notices my hesitation as my hand hovers over the control interface on my omni-tool, and a brief war is waged between logic and gut instinct. Sacrifice some for the good of the many later...or try to save them all now, and face an even more daunting, if not impossible task later? Taking in a trembling breath, I realize that there's really no choice. None at all. Besides, I've never been one to take the easy way in anything in my life, anyway. How's that saying go? Nothing worth doing is ever easy. Bringing down my fingers on the holographic keys, I toggle a brief upload, replacing the image of _Sovereign_ with a detailed planview from the data that Vendetta gave us.

"What I'm about to say must not leave this room, is that understood?" I look around the room, meeting six pairs of eyes. "If this gets out, if this falls into the wrong hands, then we're going to have a hell of a problem on our hands, because it could mean the end of all sentient life in the galaxy."

Kohaku stares at me for a brief moment, apparently to determine if I'm serious or if this is an elaborate hoax. He then glances over at Shepard, who looks at me, as well. She gives a brief, almost imperceptible nod, and the admiral inclines his head. "Commander Radmanski, initiate privacy mode, authorization ten-break-alpha, purge all audio-visual logs of this room, and classify any and all material obtained as top secret, level rho."

"Yes, sir."

"Thank you, Commander. Now, son, what are we looking at?"

"This. According to prothean military archives, this is a cruiser-class Reaper warship, but it's more than just a ship. It's a sentient creature in itself, a semi-organic AI." Weapons data begins scrolling across the screen, too fast for them to read it all, but I pause the display at one particular readout. The estimated yield of the Reaper's main cannon.

Hushed murmurs course through the room as they stare at numbers believed to be impossible to achieve. Anything from _dear God_ to a muttered _Spirits_, and even a muttered curse from Shepard.

"That's enough firepower to break a dreadnought in half," Nadya whispers in awe.

"Pretty much," I agree. "And it gets worse. That's _Sovereign_, Saren's flagship. What he's trying to do is find something called the Conduit, something that he believes is on the other side of the Mu Relay. Whatever he hopes to find there, he thinks it'll let him bring back more of them. A lot more."

"How many are we talking about here?" Kohaku asks grimly.

My throat is dry as I give him my answer, from calculations and prothean tactical data. "Two, maybe three thousand. Plus assorted destroyer-sized vessels and support ships."

"Three...three _thousand_?" Bartowski stutters in disbelief, his face pale. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

"Where did you get this information? This is highly detailed...tactical data, engineering, even fleet tactics. I don't believe Special Operations or Naval Intelligence alone could have found out this much."

"I'd like to know that, as well, Admiral," Shepard joins in as the two commanding officers look at me.

I stare right back at them, determined to give them as much as they need to know, and not a single word more. If I tell them now that I was on Thessia, well...let's just say questions as to how I came to know about there being a prothean VI on the asari homeworld would not end well. For anyone.

"Special Operations recalled me for an op from my post aboard the _Normandy_ two weeks ago. We had reason to believe that we had located an intact prothean data archive, and were sent on a recovery operation. Turns out that it was a military data archive from the time of their fall. Tactical data, technical specs, everything we could grab on the Reapers, we took." I gesture towards the Reaper's technical layout. "It wasn't much, but that was among it."

"Why was Alliance Command not notified of this find?" Kohaku asks angrily. "That, much like the discovery on Eden Prime, could have helped prevent a hell of a lot of bloodshed!"

"I just followed orders, Admiral. To be honest, I'm thinking that by and large the terrorist organization we're both after would like nothing more than to get their hands on that advanced prothean tech, and Divine help us all if that ever happens."

He shakes his head in disgust and sighs. "Intelligence. If we'd known about the discovery on Eden Prime earlier instead of NavInt going renegade and dispatching the _Normandy_ for a covert retrieval operation we could've had a full battlegroup in orbit to prevent that massacre from ever happening." Looking up at me, he tilts his head inquisitively. "Can you at least tell me what happened to the archive you pulled this data from?"

"It was destroyed." That's the background story I made up, and I'm sticking to it. "We were under attack from hostile forces, likely Cerberus, and I made the call to blow the place to pieces rather than letting them have it, Admiral."

He looks at me a little suspiciously, but seems to buy it. "I won't fault you for that decision, Lieutenant, but if we'd known about it..."

"Hindsight and all, Admiral, but I think we have a more pressing concern. Saren, if these logs can be trusted, is heading for Virmire, and then indubitably for the Mu Relay. We have no idea how he got a hold of its coordinates, but hopefully, we'll have one big advantage here."

"And what's that?" This time it's Nadya speaking up.

Giving her a small grin, I pull up a starmap and access the other piece of information I have on my omni-tool. "We know where the Mu Relay is. If we can stop Saren and _Sovereign_ from reaching it, we can halt their plans. Right here, right now."

"We should rally the fleet. One cruiser battlegroup isn't going to be enough to put a dent in that thing's armor," Kohaku notes, having switched the display back to the tactical readout. "Not by a long shot. The Fifth could be there in two days. The First in another eight hours."

"By all means, if we can convince Admiral Hackett to move out," I tell him.

Nadya suddenly cocks her head and listens to her earpiece. "Commander Shepard? I've got your helmsman on the comm. He says there's an urgent call coming in from Captain Anderson."

"Can you route it here?" Shepard asks.

"Of course." The XO steps aside and speaks a few words through her personal comm, and a second later the holo display is replaced by Anderson's uniformed image.

"Captain Anderson," Shepard greets him amiably, if a little cautiously. Man, what the hell did I miss the two weeks I was gone?

"Shepard." Anderson looks into the round. "Admiral Kahoku, it is good to see you well. I take it rumors of your demise are grossly exaggerated?"

"Not for lack of trying, David."

"No, I suppose not." Anderson heaves a heavy sighs. "Shepard, I've come from talks with Alliance Command and the Council. Udina is not very pleased with your attempts to push the Reaper theory on them without concrete proof."

"Concrete proof?" the N7 operative asks incredulously. "What about the _Normandy_'s sensor logs from Eden Prime? What about Matriarch Benezia? What about-"

"The beacon?" Anderson shakes his head. "I'm afraid a vision is not considered viable evidence. As much as I want to believe you - and I do, Shepard, I really do - we might be on our own with this. Alliance Command is willing to set aside a task force to deal with Saren and investigate, but I don't think we can expect any help from the Council."

"And this might just be the time we might need that help. David, we have...reliable intel that Saren Arterius is going to be heading into the Terminus Systems. There's a chance we can intercept and stop him," Kohaku informs his counterpart.

"I hear a but coming."

"We'll need more firepower than my flotilla can bring to bear. We need the Fifth."

"Even that might not be enough," I add quietly. Apparently not quietly enough, because everyone's looking at me now. Dammit, I've got to stop doing that.

Finally, Kohaku gives a brief nod and turns back to Anderson. "He's right, David. Arterius's flagship...it's massive. We don't have the firepower to stop him."

"I've already negotiated with the Council to bring the Citadel Fleet on standby, but they're unwilling to move it." Anderson snorts in disgust. "Claiming that it'd best serve by protecting the Citadel in case of a hostile strike."

"They're not taking this seriously, are they?" Shepard asks tiredly. "No more than a rogue spectre, anyway."

"I'm afraid not," her mentor admits. "But there's a silver lining."

"What's that?"

"The reason I called you, Shepard. We've received a distress call from a salarian STG team that is holed up on a planet called Virmire. They requested combat support and extraction, claiming to have vital information on the extent of Saren's operation and his ties to the Reapers."

At the mention of Virmire, practically everyone in the room stiffens and looks at me. I just shrug and stare right back. "Hey, don't look at me. Personally, _I_ don't think it's coincidence that he's heading there right after the salarians found something of interest."

"What's he talking about?" Anderson asks curiously.

"Long story," Kohaku replies, "I'll fill you in once we return, but that location has come up in our own operations."

"Saren's itinerary we pulled from the base was about a week old, he could be long gone," Tali adds.

"Which makes it even more imperative that we pull all the ships together we can get and catch him before he goes through that relay. Captain, is there _any_ way we can convince Admiral Hackett to divert the Fifth at all?" Shepard's staring at the hologram with such intensity it's actually a little freaky, almost as if she could change his mind simply by willing it.

Anderson shakes his head. "Not yet. That's why I want you to take the _Normandy_ and recover that STG team. If they have anything useful at all, we can use that to mobilize the fleet." At her look, he adds, "Admiral Hackett agreed to put the ships on readiness...they'll be on standby, and the moment we get the word from you, we'll be en route."

Something's still bugging me about this, about the order of events and the locations of ships. "The Fifth is still anchored at Arcturus, right?"

"That's correct."

It finally clicks. If we can't stop Saren, then the Fifth is going to have to fly to the Citadel from Arcturus. Not to mention the fact that they'll lose a hell of a lot of ships in that firefight trying to save the _Destiny Ascension_. And considering that everything almost happens at the same time - the _Normandy _getting impounded, Shepard and Anderson hijacking her, taking her through the Mu Relay, and then returning through the Conduit to the Citadel, it all happens in a matter of hours after the return from Virmire.

There's only one way we can stop Saren without massive casualties in trying to take down _Sovereign_, and that is to be prepared to fight him at the Citadel. Intercepting Saren at the Mu Relay isn't going to do us a lick of good, because _Sovereign_ won't be there. There's no reason for the Reaper to go through the Conduit. Hell, the only reason for Saren to go through the Conduit is because he needs to get aboard the Citadel undetected to undo the prothean sabotage.

We _have_ to fight _Sovereign_ at the Citadel. There's no other way.

But that brings up the question...why did Saren wait to undo said sabotage? He's been indoctrinated for a while, why not do it while he still had access, before turning traitor? There has to be a reason the Reapers chose _now_ to make their move.

And why wait two years until they send in the Collectors, until they make their first major push into known galactic space after _Sovereign_'s defeat at the Citadel? They could have come at any time after their usual entry strategy of using the Citadel relay failed; even without using the Collectors, they could have easily overrun an unprepared galaxy.

Unless it was necessary for them to wait.

_No plan ever survives first contact with the enemy._ The Reapers must have a plan B, a secondary, a failsafe. A backup. This can't have been the only cycle to have made it this far and survived the initial onslaught of the Reapers. The protheans got a hell of a lot further technologically than even the asari ever did, had united the galaxy under their rule in a single empire while the races right now are fractured, standing apart.

The protheans made it farther.

The protheans were more technologically advanced.

The protheans were _united_.

It's not about synthetics or AIs at all.

It suddenly clicks, a flash of inspiration, and I'm not sure if I have Q to thank for it or just my normal paranoia.

"They _have_ to strike now." I look into the assembled faces. "The Reapers don't _want_ to strike now, but something made it _necessary_ for them to strike now."

"You're not making sense, Lieutenant," Anderson says evenly.

I catch Shepard's eye. There'll be hell to pay for this later, I'm certain of it, but I'm already halfway in. Time to take that leap of faith. "Look," I explain, "from what we know from the protheans, the Reapers embark on a galaxy-wide killing spree every fifty-odd thousand years or so; at least that's what the protheans believed. More specifically, they believed, having found remnants of the civilizations before theirs, that there comes a point, a...a trigger, if you will, where a sentient species advances to the point and exerts their dominance over the galaxy that causes the Reapers to attack."

"That makes no sense."

"I know, but hear me out." I hold up my hands defensively. "Look, the protheans firmly believed that their rapid expansionism somehow called to the Reapers, that they triggered their own demise somehow. They suspected something had wiped out the species preceeding them in just such a galaxy-wide extinction-level event."

Kahoku looks at me, his head tilted slightly in curiousity. "What is your point, Lieutenant? That this is just the spearhead of a massive invasion by extragalactic forces? I think that point, while open to debate, is already under consideration by all present."

"My point is that maybe the protheans were _right_." I tap away at the holoprojector's controls, shrinking Anderson's image and pulling up a galaxy map next to it. "Look, we have archeological records that indicate the prothean empire spanned from the Attican Traverse to the Shrike Abyssal. By the time they were attacked, they had been a united empire for a long time, so why were they so suddenly attacked?"

"And why are _we_ under attack, then, if there is nothing near that sort of unified galactic government?" Nadya asks.

"Because it's not about how large, or united the galaxy is, but about the _rate of development_. The protheans were at the height of their technological prowess when they were wiped out." I highlight the pre-First Contact War systems. "Before humans came into contact with the asari, or the turians, or any other race, this was our territory. Three systems. Likewise, the asari, turians, and salarians, admittedly the most technologically advanced of the Citadel races, had stagnated by the time we came into first contact with them."

The projection shifts, highlighting Alliance space as it grows over the next ten years as I fast-forward the time scale. "The First Contact War did what every war to date has done in human history. It's spurred on technology and innovation, especially as we were massively outgunned. The end result is that the last ten years have seen Alliance space grow from a barely interstellar faction to one of the major powers in the galaxy, socio-politically, technologically, as well as military. This kind of rapid technological development is unheard of in this cycle, surpassing even that of the asari."

"So what are you saying? That we are somehow responsible for this?"

"Maybe," I admit, looking back at the admiral. "But more importantly, it was something the Reapers probably don't expect. The prothean war records indicate that their first strike was massive, targeted at their primary governmental and military communications and command infrastructure. Why hasn't something like this happened? Why is _Sovereign_ the only ship we know of so far?"

Shepard's fidgeting as she squints at the map. I can tell she's thinking. Three, two, one...

"They aren't ready," she concludes. "What I saw in the vision were hundreds of ships descending on individual worlds. That kind of mobilization must take time."

"Exactly. Wherever they come from, extragalactic space, darkspace, hyperspace, wherever, I doubt they've been active this entire time. Maybe some sort of standby mode. It probably takes them time to wake up, as it were. And when the trigger came ahead of schedule..."

"They weren't ready to deploy enough forces for their usual tactic," Anderson finishes.

_That's_ why Saren dragged out this wild goose chase over the past few weeks, why he's collecting geth followers, because the Reapers knew - _Sovereign _knew - that even if they could muster the ships for the initial strike at the Citadel, they would not have the numbers to complete their objectives. They're waiting, stalling, for more of them to wake up while gathering reinforcements in this very galaxy. They're shoring up their goddamn power base in case of a prolonged war.

_That's_ why it takes the Collectors two years to show up. _Sovereign_ is probably one of the only capital-class Reapers active at this time. Maybe he's even the one who monitors galactic development and saw the need to call for their pan-galactic jihad early.

Anderson and Kahoku are looking at each other now. "They're going to attack the Citadel," the admiral states quietly, and Anderson nods in agreement.

"It's the logical choice."

"All right, then. Commander Shepard, you are technically not in my chain of command..."

"The _Normandy_ is ready to depart immediately." The N7 operative nods curtly. "In, out, grab the salarians, bring them to Alliance Command."

"Thank you, Commander."

"Admiral, if I may ask, what are you planning on doing?" Anderson asks.

"We're heading for the Citadel. I don't care if they're pompous, idiotic politicians, they can do their dying on someone else's watch."

T

"Good to have you back aboard, Grayson," Kaidan greets me as I step off the _Kodiak_ that dropped me, Shepard, Garrus, and Tali off on the _Normandy_.

"It's nice to be back," I give him a tired smile. "You look like you need a vacation."

"So do you," he replies, and I can't help but agree. Stupid Reapers.

"Anyone take my bunk while I was gone?"

Kaidan shakes his head as the two of us head to the elevator, while Tali and Garrus split off to go to their own little cubbyholes on Deck Three. "Haven't picked up anyone new. By the way, Commander, Doctor Chakwas wanted to talk to you. It's about Ashley."

Shepard just nods at him and hits the elevator call button. "She awake?"

"Not yet, but she should be soon."

"Good. I want answers."

Yeah, I know that feeling. "So," I start easily, trying to make conversation out of the uncomfortable silence that just cropped up after that brief exchange. "What'd I miss while I was gone?"

That gets a little grin from Shepard. "Probably nothing nearly as exciting as whatever you were doing."

"With all due respect, Commander, I think that planet was _exciting_ enough to last me a lifetime," Kaidan interjects light-heartedly. "Between the cannibalistic mind-controlled people, wild varren, and creepy giant man-eating plants, I think I've had my fill of adventure for a while."

I do my best to look surprised, which to be honest, sucks, but thankfully they're too tired to notice. "Sounds like a fun time."

"Oh, yeah," Shepard agrees with an energetic nod.

The elevator finally arrives and all three of us pile in. I hit the button for Deck Two. "So, you get to blow shit up, I take it?"

"A _freighter_," Kaidan moans. "The Commander rammed a _freighter_ into a giant man-eating plant underground."

"_What_?" This time my surprise is genuine, because that's _not_ how I remember Feros going down. "Okay, back up a little, I totally have got to hear this."

But before either of them can reply, the cabin slides to a halt and the doors open. Shepard pats me on the shoulder and winks at me. "Maybe I'll tell you all about it later, Grayson."

Oooo-kay. Glancing over at Kaidan, the man just shrugs and heads up to the CIC while Shepard goes over to the med-bay. Hefting my duffel over my shoulder, I make for the crew quarters to unpack.

Just like the last time I packed and unpacked, it doesn't take long to shove my meagre belongings into the footlocker. Weapons cleaning and maintenance kit, a couple of changes of clothes, miscellaneous spare parts, and a few odds and ends. I'm about to close the locker when something drifts out of the duffel I've unceremoniously upended to get the last bits and pieces out.

Hey, I'm tired and I'm a guy. I don't feel like putting in all those little pieces in properly right now. I'm just glad I had the energy left to fold my clothes!

But what caught my attention is the little picture of me and Miranda that I found the first time I unpacked aboard the _Normandy_. I can't help but smile a little at the sight of it as I turn it over. I haven't even so much as looked at it since I got it months ago.

Hell, I haven't even thought of Miranda ever since I walked out of her place on the Citadel. Despite everything, I really do hope she's all right. Or will be all right.

"But I guess you can't tell me that, can you, Q?" I whisper quietly as I tuck the picture safely into the side of the footlocker. There's no answer. Figures.

With a sigh, I heave myself up. Might as well freshen up and get something to eat. I guess it's only just now that everything's catching up with me. My fight with Miranda, the shit I'm pulling right now in changing the course of events, and the absolute, utter _mess_ this is becoming. Hell, maybe I bit off more than I can chew, after all.

And to think, Q even warned me about this. Asked me if I was sure I wanted to go down this route, instead of letting things play out as they were.

Rubbing a hand over my tired face in the bathroom and splashing some water on it, I fumble for a second for a towel before finding the one I brought with me. Looking back at me from the mirror is...someone I barely recognize.

A little stubble is growing, courtesy of the fact that I haven't shaved in two days, and my eyes just about scream tired, despite the fact that I'm getting enough rest. It's not so much a physical exhaustion, I guess, as an emotional one.

And that little voice that's been nagging at the back of my mind that I might be doing more harm than good with all the shit I'm pulling really isn't helping right now, either.

I drop the towel off on my bunk and head out into the corridor. There's no helping it now, the course is set, all we can do is make the best of it.

A crash from med-bay causes me to look over. Huh, wonder what's going on there. Chakwas doesn't _ever_ get upset, at least I not that I know of. Curiousity gets the better of me as I walk closer, around the divider separating it from the mess hall. Muffled voices are coming through the wall, followed by another crash.

Looking in through the window, I freeze for a second before spinning around and running for the med bay door.

They hiss open just in time for me to see the two women to get to their feet.

Well, a slightly detached part of me muses, at least Ashley's back on her feet.

And with a sidearm pointed square between the Commander's eyes, no less.

What the _fuck_?

Why do I feel like I just walked into the Twilight Zone?

"Williams, what the hell do you think you're doing?" Shepard seems calm enough considering the fact that she's got a gun in her face.

Me, on the other hand? I'm breaking out in cold sweat and trying to figure out what the hell is going on here, because that sure as fuck wasn't in the script. In fact, the fucking script just took a nosedive, curled up, and drowned itself in a river of its own tears. Amidst all that, I'm barely even registering that Chakwas is down with blood smattering her silvery hair. But at least she's breathing.

The pistol doesn't sway at all as Ash's eyes dart over to me. "I need to continue the fight. They promised me they would let me continue the fight," she says in that flat, even monotone of hers that freaks me out.

Because it sounds just like...

Just like _him_.

Mechanical.

"What happened, Williams? The last time I saw you-"

"Do you know what they said?" the younger woman asks angrily. "They told me I was _unsuited_ for further deployment! I was being discharged, Commander! Where were you? You swore to me that you would keep me on, you _swore_-"

Shepard glares right back at her, the Commander's composure never wavering as I inch my way into the room to check on the doc. "I did all I could, Williams. I needed you to work with me, and you didn't. I asked you to get your head sorted out, and you didn't. Dammit, Ashley, do you think I _like_ seeing what you've done to yourself?"

Chakwas is alive, thank the Divine. Strong pulse, steady breathing, I'm guessing she's just KO'd and the damage looks worse than it is. Fortunately, Ashley seems too intent on Shepard to care much for me kneeling next to the Doc to check on her.

Ashley takes a deep breath to steady herself and reigns in her anger. "I'm sorry it came to this, Commander, but I'm doing this for the good of the galaxy."

"The good of the galaxy?" Shepard asks, arching a curious eyebrow. "What are you talking about?"

"You wouldn't understand..." her voice wavers for just a little instant, and Shepard sees the opening at the same time I do, and realization slams into me like a freight train.

_You wouldn't understand_.

_ This is for the good of the galaxy._

Shepard glances over at me briefly, and before I can wonder what that was all about, she takes a step forward, the barrel of Ashley's gun almost pressed into her chest. "You don't have the guts," she says, all warmth gone from her tone, her eyes flickering with an almost unearthly icyness.

I don't think Shepard truly believed Ashley would pull the trigger. In any other circumstances, she would have been right, but in that very instant I know what's happened, and it hits me right in the gut like a heavyweight punch. Rising bile and nausea included.

I spring to my feet, reaching for Shepard, trying to push her out of the way as Ash's finger tightens around the trigger. I can almost reach her.

Almost...

The discharge of the pistol seems impossibly loud in my ears as I slam into Shepard.


	27. Chapter 27

**Author's Note: **Here you are, with a second chapter for your belated Christmas gift :P Hope y'all enjoy!

**Chapter Twenty-Seven**

Dammit, why the hell do I keep doing this stupid shit? That's about the only thought I manage as I'm swamped with pain and generally my body telling me to piss off and stop doing stupid-ass shit to myself as I crash into the floor on top of Shepard and roll off her.

One of my hands automatically goes to clutch at just below my right collarbone trying to protect the open wound as I roll to my side and cough.

Even that hurts. Oh...that's a lot of red...shit, I think my lungs aren't doing too good.

Above me, I'm vaguely aware of crackling biotics.

And then, "Medical emergency, assistant medical personnel to med bay, _now_!"

That's Shepard's voice. Huh, guess she's still in one piece.

"Come on, Grayson, stay with me." I can feel her propping up my head, and I lift up one of my hands. It's coated in red, and it's getting really hard to breathe.

"Damn," I mutter, coughing up a fountain of foaming blood, "hurts."

"Of all the stupid..." Shepard admonishes me lightly, rummaging around somewhere I can't see. There's a little prick on the side of my neck that almost doesn't register among all the rest of the pain, and my vision clears up a little and I can feel my heart speeding up. "Don't quit on me now, you hear me? Stay with me, Patrick. Come on, focus on the sound of my voice. Help's on the way."

All the times I got shot at in my armor? They don't hold a damn candle to this. You wouldn't think a paintchip-sized projectile could do a lot of damage. And on armor, it doesn't, because it just distributes all of its kinetic energy into a hell of an impact that gives you a whopper of a bruise, but not much else.

And you'd think that such a tiny round would make for a shitty antipersonnel round, penetrating soft tissue cleanly instead of tearing massive holes into it like a .45. And you'd be right.

But here's one thing you haven't thought of. Having a supersonic microscopic projectile hurling at you through air generates a ton of heat. Heat and pressure that are just waiting to come in contact with anything fragile. Like the inside of your lungs. Even a microscopic projectile supercavitating through your lungs will do a metric shit-ton of damage.

It's getting harder to keep my eyes open, and my lungs are burning. I'm vaguely aware of being lifted up and set down on probably one of the beds. My hands are getting cold, and I can't really bring myself to move them.

I drift in and out of consciousness as I'm almost detached, observing in between bouts of blackness that blurred faces are hovering above me, shouting, talking, working, but I can't hear a thing. I can't even hear the rush of my own blood, or my heartbeat.

Total, utter silence. It's really creepy.

You can't really imagine what it's like, to be alone with your thoughts and nothing else for company. No sensation, no feeling, no tingling, no sound whatsoever. I think I've gone into shock. Where was I?

Oh, yes. No sound at all. It's really creepy.

"You sure know how to get yourself into trouble."

Speaking of creepy.

"Yeah, well, story of my life. Couldn't ever do anything the easy way." It's weird, standing next to your body while everyone who is frantically working to save your life is frozen in time while you have a conversation with a being occupying a higher plane of existence. Of course, it does have its benefits: the pain's gone.

Q's leaning against Chakwas's desk, his arms crossed and looking for all the world like the relaxed little bugger he is. I stretch my legs and enjoy my newfound non-corporeal freedom as I walk around med bay, taking note of Chakwas's still form resting two beds over. "Guessing I screwed that up big time, huh?" I ask him as I stand over Chakwas, briefly looking over the injuries that the emergency medical personnel bandaged up.

"Perhaps." Q pushes off from the doc's desk and walks over to my prone form. My _other _prone form, that is. "But it's more likely you actually did...good."

"What?" I don't think I heard that right, my head swiveling over to look at Q.

"Nasty." Q peers down where a couple of med techs are scrambling to fix the giant hole where my lung used to be. Yeah, no way am I walking over there. He looks back up at me. "I suppose as the deed is done, there's no harm in telling you. In about eighty percent of possible timelines in which this confrontation occurs, Shepard does not survive."

"This was the plan all along, wasn't it?" I ask as a few things finally start falling into place. "All this...her deviation from her personality in the game, her sudden anger, the way she lashes out but is so desperate to stay close to Shepard. That was _Sovereign'_s plan all along, wasn't it?"

The nigh-omnipotent being shakes his head with an amused smirk. "You overthink once again. Sometimes matters are quite simple. Cause," he looks at me, the me who's standing upright, "and effect."

"Me being here caused this?"

"To an extent. But not in asmuch as you were the underlying cause so much as the trigger." Q pokes at some of the medical instruments with a childlike curiousity that seems oddly out of place. "Your presense in this universe had no bearing on that woman being influenced by the Reapers. It was always a possibility."

"The beacon," I realize. "She was in contact with the beacon on Eden Prime. Either her or Kaidan."

"A beacon already contaminated by the Reaper's influence," he confirms, uncharacteristically eager to answer my questions.

"So you're telling me that all this was...what? _Sovereign_ all along? She's been indoctrinated since Eden Prime? That somehow by Saren activating the beacon first, he passed on _Sovereign_'s...taint? Indoctrination?" I honestly didn't think it was contagious, but maybe it is.

"Not at all. As you of all people are aware, indoctrination is a slow, gradual process. Her grief was very real. It merely opened the door, so to speak. When it comes down to it, that is all they can do, after all. The Reapers may lie and deceive, but they cannot force actions against their host's will. And the mere fact that she was made an offer that played right into the Reaper's hands was just the...icing on the cake, as you humans like to say."

That about confirms my suspicions. Between what she's said, and her presence at a Cerberus base, plus the purpose of said base, I'm pretty certain my hunch on what happened to her is right. Figures that Tim just couldn't keep his grubby hands out of this business. It also figures that his plan drastically backfired and just made things go _Sovereign_'s way. I wonder if I can actually drink in this form. Whatever the hell _this form_ is. Shit, that's a lot to take in. I mean, what the fuck? Running a hand through my hair, I lean back against Chakwas's bed. "Why tell me all of this?"

"Why not?" Q almost looks amused.

"Because I _know_ you, Q," I deadpan. "Encounter at Farpoint ring a bell? The whole mess with Q2? _Hello_?"

He has the good sense to chuckle at that. "Ah, that. Yes, humans are so...easily irritated. Always questioning, always inquisitive. Always with the need to know everything."

"Glad to see you find us so amusing. But seriously, why not go bother someone else for a change? I'm sure the Spirit of the Abyss would just _love_ for you to drop by for tea and crumpets. Or maybe those pesky taelon."

"Now now, no need to get defensive," Q tuts in slight disapproval. "To answer your question, you surprised me. A rare event, I assure you."

"I did?"

"You did." Q idly plays with the buttons on some machine I can't even begin to identify. "Although I hope that you are prepared to deal with the consequences."

A humorless laugh escapes from my throat. "You mean, on top of all the shit that's about to go down? Seriously, what could possibly be worse than a Reaper invasion of known space, hell-bent on the annihilation of all sentient spaceflight-capable life in the galaxy?"

"Jane Shepard's trust."

My jaw drops open, and my gut suddenly freezes solid. "Wh-what?" I whisper, wondering if I've heard him wrong.

But it seems his genial mood is at an end for now, because he looks up from whatever the hell he was doing, gives me that cocky smirk of his, and snaps his fingers, vanishing in a blaze of light. And then the silence is gone, replaced by a cacophony of voices.

"O2 sat is low. Get me that ventilator!"

"BPM is dropping fast. We're losing him-"

"Clamp it off, clamp it off, we've got to stem the bleeding-"

"Damn it, Grayson. Don't you dare quit on me. You hear me?"

And then I'm back in my own body, hurting like a son of a bitch, before unconsciousness finally takes me.

T

The next time I manage to open my eyes, it's dark in med-bay, probably sometime during the ship's night-cycle. It takes a little while for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, but the grogginess I've come to expect from waking up in a hospital isn't there. In fact, I'm feeling surprisingly light-headed. There's an odd weight on my left arm, and letting my head loll over, I take a moment to make sense of what I'm seeing.

A curtain of red hair covers the head that's pillowed in the crook of her elbow, and her free arm is resting on mine, pinning down my left shoulder.

Huh.

My little movement must've woken her, because she stirs almost immediately, her eyes drifting open. And then I'm looking right into a pair of dark green eyes.

"'ello," I manage to croak out.

"Hello, yourself," she replies quietly. "How're you feeling?"

"Numb." I try and lift my right arm, but I can't. There's no feeling there, and closer inspection yields a bunch of tubes attached to my chest on that side. From the lack of pain - or any feeling on that side, for that matter - I'm guessing I'm hopped up on happy-juice. Attempting to move my left arm, on the other hand, yields satisfactory results. "The hell happened?"

Shepard tilts her head to the side and chuckles. "You tried to be a goddamn hero again, Grayson."

"Did it work?" I can't help but ask, with what must be an utterly silly grin on my face.

"Yeah. Yeah, it did," she replies, that tiny smile of hers back again. "You want anything?"

"Water'd be nice." I try and push myself up on the bed with my left, only to find her hand on my shoulder.

"Don't. It took a lot of work to fix you back up. Until Karin is back on her feet and can take a look at you, you're staying like that."

"Yes, ma'am."

She reaches over and produces a water bottle, feeding a straw into it, and holds it up for me to take a sip from. When I'm done, she sets it down on the nightstand next to her, and resumes her former position, propping her chin up in the palm of her hand next to my head. "They think you're going to make it, though. Which is fortunate for you, because that means you actually listened to my orders for a change and saved me the trouble of having to come after you to haunt you."

"What was the damage?" Though I'm not entirely sure I actually want to know.

There's that slight tilt of the head again that's so classically Shepard. She huffs at a strand of her hair that's hanging across her eyes and looks around the room. Up at the ceiling, at my bedsheets, anywhere but at me.

"That bad, huh?" I prod.

She sighs and leans back. "It could've been worse. A lot worse. We could've lost you. Almost did, at one point. Machines had flatlined and all, but somehow, you just started breathing again. Not an easy feat on one lung and with your system in shock, I might add." She laughs mirthlessly. "Speaking of...your right lung, it's...well, it's gone. Karin might've been able to save it, but with the damage it took, you probably never would've had full use of it again, anyway."

Ah. That explains why I've been feeling like I've been breathing high-altitude air. "Eh, what's a lung between friends."

"They're cloning you a new one. Probably going to stick all sorts of fancy cybernetics into it to make it more _efficient_," Shepard notes with a hint of derision. That's odd, I never really figured her for the type to be against augmentations.

"Hope that's covered by my insurance," I mutter to myself. Hell, I've got no idea how the hell this kind of expense is covered, because in all honesty, something like that can't be cheap.

"It's taken care of. We just need to get you fit enough to survive the surgery and the integration. You'll be back on your feet in no time."

"That explains all the wiring."

"You're taking this pretty well," the Commander notes with an arched brow.

I just shrug as best as I can without actually moving too much. "It's not the weirdest thing that's happened to me."

"Somehow I thought you'd just be a little more freaked out about having to have a complete lung replaced."

"Hey, it could be worse. I could be having _both_ lungs replaced," I mutter with a grin.

"Don't even joke about that," Shepard admonishes me. "I don't like losing crew. What the hell were you even _thinking_?"

"I was thinking that there's a crazy woman who's pointing a gun at my CO and I'd better do my damn best to make sure you're the one who walks away from it." Not to mention the fact that she's the last, best hope for the galaxy, blah, blah, blah...

She's quiet for a moment as she just looks at me. Just, like, stares at me, as if she's looking for something, with that piercing gaze of hers. Finally, she smiles briefly, and leans over to smack me over the head. Ouch, what the hell? Who does she think she is, Leroy Jethro Gibbs? "Thank you, Patrick," she says gently. "But if you ever do that again-"

"You'll do terrible, unspeakable things to me, yada, yada," I cut her off cheekily. Not the smartest thing to do, I suppose, but hey, I can always blame the morphine. If that's even morphine. "But I'm guessing this isn't a quick fix."

Shepard lets out a long breath. "Yeah. I'm putting you on a shuttle to the _Valor_ with instructions to drop you off on the Citadel for medical care. You're sitting this next one out."

"What?" _That_ gets me up and moving. "Commander-"

She easily pushes me back down. "No argument from you. _You're going_. That's final." Her expression softens a bit as she leans over me. "Look, I need you to not fight me on this. Okay? We're still with the _Valor_, and as soon as you've been moved, we're heading out. That STG team doesn't have a lot of time left, and we need their intel."

"I appreciate the sentiment, but you'll need all hands on deck on Virmire. Trust me on that one, Commander." Although if I'm entirely honest, I'm not so sure I'll be in any condition to go down to Virmire. But...hell, Ash isn't going, which means that the other half of the suicide mission just opened up.

And that's not good.

Not good at all.

Shepard looks at me for a moment, then shakes her head. "You can't even function on one lung. I understand you wanting to go, but you're not going to be of any help until you're fixed up. This isn't something you can just slap some medi-gel on, Patrick."

"I know." Letting myself sink back into the pillow, I let out a long sigh. "No, really, I get it. It's just..."

"You wanted to see things through."

"Kinda. But even more than that, there's, well...I've got a really bad feeling about Virmire, Commander. A really, really bad feeling, like Saren's leading you into a trap. And something tells me I need to be there." Objectively, I know there's just no way I'm going to Virmire. It just isn't going to happen. Hell, I should probably thank my lucky star that I ain't in a coffin yet - and I ain't ever had much luck to begin with. Although, if I'm entirely honest, Q might've had something to do with this. Wouldn't do to have your experiment specimen die ingloriously choking on his own blood before he even gets close to the finish line, after all.

But there's other ways to make sure the suicide mission isn't...well, a suicide mission.

"You're serious about this." She just stares at me, probably not really sure what else to say. "But this is not the time. You're going to need at least a couple of weeks to recover, even if the implant goes well. So I order you to hurry up and get well, because I'm going to need you when the shit hits the fan, after this mess with Saren and _Sovereign_ is sorted out and we go after the rest of the Reapers."

A tiny grin worms its way on my face. "Yes, ma'am."

"What did I tell you about calling me ma'am?" Shepard pats me on the shoulder. "We'll be careful on Virmire. I don't suppose this has anything to do with the chip you gave me before we made planetfall?"

"A little. And some of it is my gut telling me that things never go smoothly where you're involved, Commander."

"You're telling me I can't do _smooth_, Grayson?" Shepard practically purrs.

"Only if your idea of smooth includes high explosives and vicious firefights. Then again, that _is_ sort of what I'd expect from an N7, so I guess it evens out," I counter, matching her smirk easily. "But it never hurts to have a backup plan."

"No, it doesn't. You're obviously in no shape to be drinking, does that mean I shouldn't ask?"

I chuckle lightly, tilting my head back and looking up at the ceiling. "I'll have to take a rain check on that, Commander, but go ahead anyway. Just make sure you remember you owe me a drink."

"All right, then. What does your _gut_ tell you we should be prepared for?" Shepard asks in a tone that leaves no doubt that she doesn't believe for a moment that it's just my gut telling me this stuff. But at this point I don't really care, because as long as she listens, I'll deal with the fallout _later_. I'm in it already, this ship's going down uncharted paths.

I just shrug and take it in stride. Hey, I'm laid up in a bed with tubes and shit sticking out of my chest and a lung missing, cut me some slack. "Considering you're dealing with a potentially indoctrinated spectre and his immensely powerful and technologically advanced backers, I'd say...oh, a couple of thermonuclear warheads to make sure whatever fiendish projects he was working on never see the light of day?" I grimace briefly as I remember the thorianized Cerberus personnel down on Binthu. They weren't just brainwashed and controlled, they had fucking _mutated_. That's just a whole new level of assholery even for Tim, experimenting on his own people. Unless it was an experiment gone wrong, which isn't any more comforting. "Yeah, definitely make sure that shit doesn't fall into the wrong hands."

"All right, I'll make a note of it." Shepard grins and looks at me. "Have I ever said no to gratuitous demolition and wanton property damage?"

"Kind of figured you'd enjoy that one. But seriously...make sure you have a plan to blow that place to kingdom come if you have to. Preferably one that lets you do it from a safe distance. Maybe some low-tech chemical timer or something. Something that can't be stopped once it's triggered."

"Do I even want to ask why?"

"Are you kidding? Have you _seen_ the shit we dragged up from the ground facilities on Binthu?"

Shepard actually grimaces. "Yeah. How they got a hold of a sample from Feros, I have no idea, but it's likely that ExoGeni was involved."

"Yeah. Now multiply that by, oh, maybe a hundred, throw in what you saw on Eden Prime, shake vigorously, and you might have a rough idea of what Saren and the Reapers might be experimenting with. Honestly, I have no idea what you're going to find, but be prepared for the worst. That's never let me down."

"That's a good mindset to have." Shepard looks at me for a moment longer, then leans back and nods. "All right, I'll run it by Tali and Alenko. Anything else your gut's telling you?"

"Yeah. Don't take Wrex."

"I beg your pardon?"

I grimace, wondering how I'm going to explain away this one. Maybe a little grain of truth, and the whole point-of-view thing. But I tell you, being Ben Kenobi is awful exhausting. And I don't even want to _think_ of the day that Jane Shepard finds out I'm working with Cerberus, because there'll be hell to pay, if I even survive. "Word has it that Saren's got a couple of krogan and salarians working with him. Krogan, salarians, genophage, you do the math."

"Word, huh?" The Commander doesn't look entirely convinced. "Saren's trying to rally the krogan to his cause?"

"By finding a cure for the genophage. Can you imagine what that'd do to the state of the galaxy?"

She actually shudders a bit at that. "It'd be a hell of a ground war. You sure about this?"

"Not one hundred percent, but it's a logical conclusion, if you buy into the prior assumption that the salarians caused the genophage in the first place to keep the krogan rebellion under control way back when."

"And if word got out we destroyed their cure, or an attempt at one..."

"There'll be hell to pay. Yup."

"I'll take it under consideration." Shepard looks almost tired, and there's actual hints of dark circles under her eyes. I'm not feeling too good, myself, probably because I just woke up from major surgery and all. And like, working off of one lung. "You look tired," she adds.

"You're not exactly winning any beauty contests, either, Commander."

That gets me a mock glare from her. "I'll have you know I won the Miss N7 title back at OTC."

"By default, because you were the only entry?" I paste a weak, tired grin on my face to show her I don't really mean it, but dang, verbal sparring with that woman is exhausting.

Shepard actually shifts around a little nervously, before replying, in a tiny voice, "yeah."

"Cheer up, Commander, I've always been partial to redheads, anyway. Particularly redheads that can kick my ass from one end of the galaxy to another."

"And don't you forget it," she chuckles. "Too bad you missed out on Feros. We had a hell of a time there. By the way, next time we're at the Citadel, the _Hawking_'s marine squad is buying drinks."

Speaking of Feros...

"Hey, Commander?"

"Yes?"

"If you're going to make me sit this one out, the least you can do is regale me with your exploits on Feros," I tell her, and for some reason, her expression just lights up at the mention of that planet. I have a feeling I'm about to find out why...

"Well, when we got there, our primary objective was securing the _Hawking_'s distress beacon and locating any survivors..."

T

By the time two of the _Normandy_'s med-techs and one of the _Valor_'s doctors come around a couple of hours later, they probably think the two of us are batshit insane, because she's utterly dissolving into giggles while gesturing wildly and trying to describe something while I'm chuckling and coughing and in general just trying not to laugh too hard, because laughing _hurts._

Especially if you only have one lung to do it on.

"So we were being chased by mutated creepers and varren, and Sergeant Calhoun yells at the remains of her men, _if you maggots don't hold the line today, I'll personally kick your sorry excuse for marine asses into next Tuesday_, right before she drops her rifle and charges into the middle of the enemy with a combat knife," Shepard tells me in between peals of laughter. "I mean, you should've seen it, that woman is completely and utterly _crazy_."

"Sounds like the two of you would get along rather well," I reply with a wry grin. "I mean, come on, I can just as well see _you_ doing that. Only, like, you'd have your biotics to fall back on, whereas she probably only had that knife."

Although, to be fair, I've seen those Alliance marine combat knives. You thought a ka-bar was scary? A ka-bar is a freakin' toothpick compared to the machete those marines carry around. Shepard tilts her head in thought for a moment, before shrugging. "You know what? I probably would. I tell you, if we hadn't shown up, that woman would've retaken the _Hawking_ all by herself on brute force, adrenaline, and sheer mule-headedness alone."

"Yup, that sounds familiar, all right."

"You callin' me pig-headed, Grayson?"

I make as if deep in thought. "Let's call it...stubbornly determined. For my prolonged health's sake."

"Good choice." Shepard chuckles and then finally notices the door's open and the three new arrivals. "Is it that time already?"

"Yes, Commander," the _Valor_'s chief medical officer confirms. I never got his name, but a quick look at this tag identifies him as a Doctor Rostenkowski. Thankfully, he's neither short, female, nor in possession of an annoyingly high-pitched voice. Geez, Q, can it with the naming jokes already, would you? "Admiral Kohaku wants to depart immediately upon his transfer. As soon as I assess the Lieutenant's condition, we'll be ready to leave."

"By all means," Shepard graciously steps away from my bedside to give the man room to work. Like all doctors, even in my time, he consults his charts, checks the machines, pokes a penlight in my eye, and then runs a blood sample through a scanner.

In the meantime, Shepard's still telling me about Feros, which I'm grateful for, because I _hate_ medical exams. Hell, I can't even stand hospitals anymore, after spending enough time in one to last me a lifetime when I was younger.

"And you know, then we find out there's this huge plant beneath the colony that's controlling everything. Freaky thing even talked through some possessed people. Like it was ripped straight from some horror holo-movie," the Commander continues as the doctor and his two helpers ignore her idle chatter good-naturedly. "So, naturally, we have to talk to it, or get rid of it."

"I, ah-" I start, mumbling around the tongue-stick the good doctor's stuck down my throat to look inside, for whatever reason. Hey, I got shot in the chest, there's nothing wrong with my neck. "-everything okay, doc?"

"Oh, yes, yes, quite. Just standard procedure. Trauma was confined to the lungs, but it never hurts to check, especially with the intrusive breathing and life support devices you were connected to initially." He looks over his chart again. "It's a miracle you survived, Lieutenant. Even more miraculous that you're awake and conscious."

I glance over at Shepard with a grin. "Well, I've had riveting company."

"Oh, I'll _rivet_ you, all right, Grayson," said woman calls out from behind the doctor. "Where was I?"

"Negotiations." I'm so tempted right now to say _aggressive negotiations_ and see if she'll take the bait for the line. But I don't, because, well, hell, I don't know why. Too slow to think of it, I guess.

"Oh, right. So Calhoun yells at me that she's spent the last three days holed up with the remainder of the _Hawking_'s crew and her marines in that derelict, gutted freighter the colonists used for a central habitat trying to _negotiate_ with the Thorian, as that thing calls itself, and then she's got the audacity to tell me that the only negotiating she'd do is by virtue of dropping a nuke down its throat. Can you imagine the _nerve_ of that woman?" Shepard asks with a grin.

That actually causes me to laugh, which soon splutters off into a wracking cough that sends pain and blood hurtling up my throat. The doctor backs away for a bit, shooting a disapproving glance at Shepard who has the good grace to look slightly chastised - just slightly, mind you - and then offers me a glass of water with a straw.

"So," I ask, after wiping my mouth, "which one of you suggested the freighter?" Don't think I forgot about Kaidan's cryptic hint that the mission involved the dropping of a ship onto the Thorian's ugly head. Not that I don't find that amusing, but...hell, what am I saying? I think it's utterly hilarious and completely _Shepard_.

"She did, actually," the Commander admits easily, with a grin on her lips. "Can't say I blame her, if I'd been stuck on that rock for two weeks, running around trying to fix the colony's life support and water filtration systems, I would've probably said the same. So we used the crane in the colony center and hoisted the entire ship up and dropped it onto the Thorian. He did a pretty good impression of a bug on a windshield, by the way."

That almost gets another laugh from me.

"Well, Lieutenant," Doctor Rostenkowski finally tells me, "seeing as you're in remarkably good shape for someone who almost died, I see no reason why we can't move you over to the _Valor_."

"You sure?"

"You're in stable condition, your oxygen saturation is reasonably high, and the equipment is portable enough." He smiles at me, and while it's not nearly as comfortable as Chakwas's bedside manner, I can't help but like the guy. House, M.D., he ain't, that's for sure.

"All right, let's get this over with." One of the med-techs brings a wheelchair, and with Shepard's help I manage to sit up and slide from the bed into the chair. The doctor rounds up my breathing apparatus - which thankfully does _not_ make me sound like Darth Vader - and wheels it behind me attached to the IV stand. Yep, they still use IVs. Mainly because there's only so much medication, nutrients, or other stuff the body can absorb over time, and continuous direct injection into the bloodstream is still the best way of doing it.

As they wheel me out, wave for them to stop and turn to Shepard. "What's going to happen to Ashley?" I ask her.

Her former jovial expression turns stoic. "She's in the brig and under quarantine. We'll deal with her once we get back to the Citadel."

"I'm surprised Kohaku doesn't want to interrogate her."

"He does," Shepard replies evenly. "But we agreed that time is too short right now. We'll see what we can get out of her on the way to Virmire that's critical to the mission's success. Everything else will have to wait for a formal inquiry."

"I see." Can't say I didn't expect something like that, but it's still..._wrong_, somehow. Almost as if it shouldn't be, but it is.

I guess it must've shown on my face, because Shepard's expression softens somewhat. "Grayson...Patrick, we're not taking what occurred lightly. Some might even call it treason."

"Oh, trust me, I know this is serious." I can't help but glance down at the tubes and wires sticking out of my chest cavity where my lung used to be. "But indoctrination is nothing to sneeze at. Not saying she isn't at fault, just that...hell, I don't know what I'm saying, either." I'm not even sure it can be _un_done. Although, even if it can, she'll have to live with what she did.

"It'll be taken into account." She straightens up and runs a hand through her loose, shoulder-length hair. "Now get the hell off my ship and get yourself fixed up. I've got a rogue spectre to catch."

I just nod at her, and the doctor continues to roll me out, and our little procession makes it all the way out of med-bay and to the elevator. Even knowing that I'm definitely not going, and that things aren't going to script anymore, I can't help but give her one last warning.

"Shepard-"

"Yeah?"

"Promise me one thing, down on Virmire."

"What is it?"

"Leave no one behind. You understand? Make _sure_ you leave no one behind."

Her expression hardens, and she gives a curt nod. "Don't worry. I won't."


	28. Chapter 28

**Author's Note: **Sorry for the delayed update, I was travelling and got off the plane late and tired. Hope y'all enjoy and had a fantastic new year's eve!

**Chapter Twenty-Eight**

The flight to the Citadel is long and uneventful for Kahoku's flotilla, interrupted only by occasional visits by Nadya and Doctor Rostenkowski. The doctor uses the time to perform a battery of tests to check for suitability and compatibility with the new lung that's being grown for me, adjusting it as necessary. Wouldn't do for my body to reject the implant after spending so much time growing it, after all.

Ah, the wonders of modern genetics.

And as comfortable as I am on the _Valor_, there's this rock in my gut. It's got nothing to do with the pain, or my injury. Rather, it's a nagging feeling of uncertainty and doubt; so much has gone off-script already that there's really no way for me to know how things are going to go on Virmire. Granted, things could go better than in the game.

Or, a large, pessimistic part of me adds with almost sadistic glee, it could be much, much worse than the game. Man, I miss the times when I was a realist. This pessimism shit really puts a damper on things. I mean, I've told Shepard to watch out, and given her more information than I probably should have. Probably so much that it'll come back to bite me in the ass later on.

Despite my warning though, I can't help but feel like something is going to go utterly, horribly wrong.

Then there's the fact that whatever happens, I know the Citadel's going to come under attack from _Sovereign_ at least, and Saren, if Shepard can't stop him. The game never really showed how Saren and the geth got aboard the Citadel, nor how he ferried that many troops aboard, unless they all came on _Sovereign_. The Reaper certainly is big enough to carry them all.

Wait a second.

Saren never shows up on Ilos.

_And _he makes it to the Citadel before Shepard.

Fuck, fuck, double-fuck.

I slam my hand down on the call button next to my bed, and the good Doctor Rostenkowski comes running. "What's the matter, Lieutenant?" he asks urgently.

"Get me Admiral Kohaku or Commander Radmanski. _Now_."

"Lieutenant?"

"Just do it!"

To his credit, he nods curtly and runs off to his office to make the call. Five minutes later, Nadya walks into the med-bay.

"What's the matter, Lieutenant?" she asks, unintentionally parrotting the doctor.

I sit up and wave her over. "Saren's not going to be at the Conduit. I don't even know if he's going to be on Virmire."

"I beg your pardon?" she says, wrinkling her brows. "Our entire plan was for the _Normandy_ to intercept Arterius before he reaches the Conduit. Why are you bringing this up now?"

Shit, how do I tell her I know Saren's going straight for the Citadel without explaining what the Conduit is and how I know about it? "Because he doesn't need to anymore. He's got a Reaper, and he's got to know we're coming after him. He's going to move fast and strike soon so he doesn't lose the element of surprise, and deal with whatever the Conduit is later on."

Or not at all, since he won't have to. Shit, why didn't I think of this earlier? Saren doesn't even _need_ to get close to the Conduit; hell, he probably didn't even know what it was in the first place, because if he did...

If he'd known, he wouldn't have wasted time looking for it. Unless it was all to lead us on a wild goose chase. He doesn't _need_ the fucking Conduit to get aboard the Citadel, in fact, using it to get aboard would be a terrible idea because it would leave him exposed in the middle of hostile territory by himself.

No, going with _Sovereign_ and launching a full-scale invasion to distract C-Sec while he activates the Citadel Relay to bring in the rest of the active Reapers makes a lot more sense strategically.

I let my head sink back as the realization that everything I've done has, for the most part, been utterly useless. This entire fucking time we've been chasing Saren around and he's been playing us. _Sovereign_'s been playing us. The Reaper of all people had to know that going for the Conduit was useless the moment Saren turned rogue.

And before? Hell, before Saren didn't even _need_ the damn Conduit.

And from the look on Nadya's face, I can tell she's starting to get it, too. Her lips purse into a grim set line. "I'll send a message to the _Normandy_ and recall her from Virmire immediately. We'll deal with the Mu Relay and the Conduit later, but the moment Shepard confirms she has the STG team, we're getting Admiral Hackett to mobilize the Fifth."

"No," I shake my head. As much as it pains me to say it, Shepard's going to have to clean up one of my messes. Tim and Cerberus know about the Conduit, and, more importantly, they know where to find it, thanks to my trip to Thessia. Granted, Cerberus probably doesn't need a way to smuggle operatives aboard the Citadel, but the things they could do with the VI and the tech on Ilos is...terrifying. "We need to secure the Conduit, whatever it is," I explain, hoping that I'm not making another giant mistake.

Nadya frowns. "Can't it wait until this crisis is dealt with?"

"Not if you want to risk the terrorist organization your boss has been chasing getting their hands on whatever it is." Plus, that'll also keep Shepard from getting her ship impounded and her and Anderson from having to steal the _Normandy_. I hope.

The _Valor_'s XO looks torn, and I can't fault her for it. It's not an easy decision to make. "I have to brief the Admiral on this," she finally says.

"Go ahead. I'm not going anywhere."

T

It takes a day and a half to get to the Citadel, during which time the entire flotilla has been in a state of alert - not that I noticed much of it down here in the med-bay, but it's the tension in the air that is almost tangible. As if they're expecting to come out of the relay and find a station under siege. Which, actually, is not that far from what happened in the game, to be honest. I still haven't quite worked out the travel times between the Ilos, Arcturus, and the Citadel yet, so I don't have any idea how long it takes Joker after he drops off Shepard on Ilos to get to the fleet and then from there reinforce the battle at the Citadel.

I've passed the time mostly by reading through a copy of Shepard's Feros mission report and trying to think of ways to prepare the galaxy for the coming of the Reapers. I've made quite a bit of headway on the first, and not nearly anything on the second.

Turns out that my instincts were right, and Feros went nothing like the game. Of course, I kind of figured that since the mission parameters had changed to a purely search-and-rescue operation for the _Hawking_. Apparently, Alliance Command lost contact with the ship and once the _Normandy_ got there, they found the frigate parked on the surface next to the colony, with both abandoned and overrun by wild, mutated varren and thorian creepers. According to ship's logs, the captain of the _Hawking_ decided to land the vessel in order to better support relief efforts for the colony which, much like in the game, had suffered power and water shortages.

And then it gets interesting. Why exactly he thought landing the ship was a good idea in the first place is unknown - there's even an entry from his XO saying that he protested and suggested calling in an actual relief ship. The colonists were actually asking for evacuation or refuge, citing that their living spaces were being overgrown and overrun by wildlife and plantlife.

They let them aboard - that was the first mistake.

The second was not screening them for any airbourne contaminants, because over the course of the next few days while the _Hawking_ sat on the ground with Calhoun and her marines trying to fix the colony's water and power supplies the way you do in the game - only without running into krogan mercs - the colonists started to get all thorianized. And not just mind-controlled, but actually _mutated_. Like the creepers on Binthu, but much more...crude. Like, half creeper-plant, half human. There's an archive picture in the file and a medical scan of a dead one, and let me tell you, it's gross.

And they took over the ship and infected most of its crew. Before anyone realized what was happening, the majority of the crew with the exception of the marine complement that had been operating with life-support and hazmat equipment was completely thorianized. Calhoun took whoever she could find and bunkered up in a bunch of caves nearby after setting the _Hawking_'s distress beacon.

And then Shepard got there, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Only, there's no mention of an asari, green or otherwise, which makes me wonder what happened to Shiala.

Though, honestly, in the weird-o-meter scale that I've got going right now, it's actually just about par for course. Especially since it's over and done with, and there were no casualties among the _Normandy_'s crew.

Now, figuring out how to prepare not just the Alliance, but the entirety of the Citadel races for a coming pan-galactic war against a race of extragalactic machine invaders, that's a whole different can of worms.

The problem, I've realized early on, is not the fact that no one believes in the Reapers. It's not even that the politicians try to sweep the Reapers under the rug - and let me tell you, the Council must have one _huge_ broom for their rug - it's the fact that what allows the Council to do it is that the Collectors don't show up immediately.

There's no follow-up to the initial incursion, no threat, nothing to convince them that it isn't over. Two years. It takes them two years to return, and even then the Collector threat is relatively limited. And try as you may, there's just no way you're going to be able to convince any kind of military to maintain readiness for that long.

And then it takes another six months for the Reapers to finally show up in force.

All of that just reinforces the sinking feeling that they've got it all planned out, that it's all part of their elaborate backup plan.

Sure, ideally _Sovereign_ would've opened up the Citadel relay and what active capital-class Reapers they had would pour in, decimating the central galactic government and then spreading out and waging a war of attrition against the rest of the galaxy as slowly more and more Reapers come online.

But barring that, they retreat, lick their wounds, bring more Reapers online while waiting for the galaxy to put the Reaper threat to rest, thinking themselves safe after so long a time.

And then..._bam_!

There come the Collectors. But wait, it's just one ship, that's not much of a threat, either, especially since it's not even close to a Reaper in terms of combat strength. So they do more cloak and dagger stuff, indoctrinate more people while gauging the readiness state of the galaxy and their ability to resist in a drawn-out war, picking the right time and place to enter the galaxy from, because after thinking about it for a bit, I'm _certain_ they can enter from any relay they choose. Not in the quantities that they could through the Citadel, but in sufficient numbers over time to saturate the galaxy.

And when that time comes...game over.

So how do you prepare the galaxy for a threat that you know is coming, but is so far along no one is willing to believe you or invest in preparations?

The ideas I've had - and it was a long list, let me tell you - got crossed off one at a time.

Every.

Single.

One.

Until only the last one is left. The one that leaves me with a really sick and twisted feeling in my gut, because it's a dehumanizing, utterly inhumane, violent, and immoral solution.

How do you prepare a nation for a great war that's coming?

You wage war _against_ them.

The concept is deceptively simple, and based on the single, basic truth that every war humanity has ever fought on even ground has eventually led to the winning side making technological leaps and bounds during and for a short time after the war. So in order to prepare the galaxy for the threat of the Reapers...

Provide a secondary threat. One that is enough of a danger to the stability and integrity of the galaxy that it'll mobilize their resources and pour money into R&D, yet not enough to just come together to wipe you out. One that is capable of running a technologically advanced guerilla war against the galaxy over the next two years, until the Reapers get here, one whose technology, if captured, will allow the Alliance to better fight the Reapers when the time comes.

And I know just the people to do it.

T

The moment the _Valor _arrives back at the Citadel, I'm transferred over to Huerta Memorial over in Aroch Ward. It's weird seeing the place not swamped with patients and the frantic sense of urgency that was so prevalent in Mass Effect 3. The hospital is actually a lot bigger than the area you got to see in the third game; and quite surprisingly, it doesn't actually feel much like a hospital. Oh, the intensive care and emergency units in the front that you get to see in the game are very hospital-y, but the actual patient and recovery rooms and lounges aren't.

They're wide open, with sweeping floor to ceiling windows, light drapes, and just an airy and open feeling. Not to mention they don't actually smell like industrial disinfectant. Always a plus, that. Especially now that I've been here for two days. The good part of being in med-bay for the whole trip back is I've been nearly undisturbed. Even had a couple of ideas for my force lance and, after some cajoling, got the doctor to let me bring some tools and the parts in to finish building it. The bad part is that now I've got nothing to do to occupy my time but think.

Being in the hospital attached to a breathing thingy is just like I remembered it to be. The being in the hospital part, not the attached to the breathing apparatus part, that is. Incidentally, though, it's not one of those massive devices that have come to expect for people on life support, but a small, portable air filter and oxygen-enrichment unit that can be mounted to an IV stand. It's actually quite portable, which is good for me, because there's no way I'd be able to take sitting around in bed all day.

Especially with Saren and _Sovereign_ on the way.

I _still_ don't know exactly when they're coming, but I know it'll be soon. I'm guessing from the timeline in the game, the attack begins probably a week after Shepard is dispatched to Virmire, allowing for time to get there, get back, get grounded, and get to Ilos.

Not to mention I'm still drawing a complete and utter blank on how to get the fleet ready for _Sovereign_. Because as they stand, nothing's changed from the game, and the Reaper is going to have a field day ploughing through the Citadel fleet. Kahoku's little flottila doesn't change that. No, we need the Fifth here, and we need the ships to be in position so that the opening salvo doesn't take out half the defending ships. We need dreadnoughts with their main cannons and a firing solution ready for _Sovereign_ to come out of the mass relay, we need to have fighters in the air and missiles prepped.

Wait a second.

Missiles, that's _it_.

Alliance - and turian, and asari, yadda, yadda - ships can't go toe-to-toe with a Reaper, not even a small one. Putting a dreadnought in front of a Reaper is just asking for a whopping, because all it is, is, well, a big honking target. A big, honking target that most Reaper ships can take out in a single shot. That mass driver primary weapon is just a bulky huge rifle that's not needed and doesn't do a whole lot of damage to begin with.

Not when missiles and torpedoes can deliver similar yield. Sure, they won't get there as fast, having to accelerate from zero with their engines, but at least ships carrying missiles won't need to be as huge as a mass-driver-carrying dreadnought. Hell, why not take the goddamn World War II approach to things and send out torpedo bombers against the Reapers. Small, agile frigates that are hard as hell to hit and loaded to the brim with torpedos, bombs, and missiles. Deploy, disengage, rearm.

Repeat.

Granted, it's a very rough idea of a plan, but perhaps Hackett can make something of it. Man, moments like these I really wish someone like, say, Ursarkar E. Creed was here. Sure could do with some of his tactical genius, hurr hurr (TM). Unfortunately, most of my calling credit is up, and hell, Miranda doesn't even know I'm back yet.

Not that I'm looking forward to her finding out. We didn't exactly part on the best of terms, and, well, she'd probably have my head for the mess I got myself into. But one good thing did come from this. Well, two, if you count Kahoku being alive. With all that's happened, well, I didn't really have time to stay mad at her. Not that I ever was, not really. More...disappointed. In her or myself, I'm not really sure, but it's probably both of us. Her for not living up to my expectations, and me for setting my expectations so damn high.

I'm still pretty sure there'll be hell to pay once Miranda finds out about my little sidetrip. Speaking of hell, there's also my neighbor, the patient in the room across from mine. And when I say across, I mean literally across a six-foot wide corridor, and nothing else. Considering the fact that the walls are all strips of transparent plexiglass, it actually feels much closer than it probably should.

And right now, she's giving the doctors hell about her treatment.

Yup, that's right. The blonde woman across the hall from me is a firespitting, opinionated, stubborn marine who might've been the spitting image of Shepard in spirit, if not in appearance. From what I've been told, she's in here to recover from some major tendon and muscle surgery and physical therapy to restore her right arm's mobility.

It may just be me, but most of the military personnel I run into - I should clarify, the _ground-pounding_ military personnel I run into, marines, ground troops, specops - are all really, really impatient to get back into the thick of things. Right now the doctor's trying to argue with her for the third time that day to take her PT slow and to give her barely mended arm time to heal before she tears it back up trying to get it functional again.

I can't really help but grin as I'm standing in the door to my room, tugging along my ball and chain - pardon me, my IV stand and Darth Vader breathing apparatus - behind me. It's just too funny to watch her yell at the doctor who is taking it all in stride and good humor even as she smacks him in the chest with a pillow to demonstrate she _can_ move her arm. She looks up at me and waves with her good arm. The doctor turns around, sees me, and mouths a terribly exaggerated "help me," to which she just smirks and mimicks throttling him behind his back.

"Calhoun, stop giving the poor doc trouble already. He's just trying to help you."

"He can help me when I'm _dead_," she calls back, though there's a mirth in her otherwise neutral expression that seems so common with military personnel.

The doctor takes it in stride. He's a drell, I think one taught by the hanar since he seems to have infinite amounts of patience. I think that's why the other doctors let him run our little corner of the hospital, the military recuperation ward, because well, between me and Calhoun - Alliance Marine Sergeant Tamora Jean Calhoun, as she introduced herself the day I got here - we pretty much drove every other physician in this joint to the brink of insanity. And that's just the two of us. There's a turian a little ways down the hall, who's about as grouchy and jumpy as they come. I'm talking Oscar the Grouch-level grouchy here.

Yeah, so I'm a terrible patient, sue me. I hate sitting around doing nothing.

At least they've got wifi in here, so me and Calhoun and some of the other patients have been playing Pac-Man 2300 in multiplayer mode when we get bored.

Hey, don't look at me like that, hospital stays are _boring_.

The drell wraps up his scanner and just slowly backs out of the room with that ever-present pleasant smile on his face. "Try not to strain your arm too much, Sergeant," he tells her just like he does every time he stops by for a routine check-up.

"Yeah, I know, ligaments have to heal, synthetic muscles have to integrate."

"Then please, do not overexert yourself." I could _swear_ the drell's got a mischievous twinkle in his eyes as, departing from his usual routine over the last two days, he adds, "unless you would like to spend even longer in here than otherwise necessary?"

_That_ actually shuts her up so quickly it's almost comical. The doctor doesn't even bat an eye, but there's a little twitch at the corner of his toothy mouth that just tells me he made a joke and he knows it. He nods to her respectfully before turning around and standing in front of me. It's not time for my checkup yet, but he usually drops by to exchange a few words, anyway.

"How are you doing today, Lieutenant?"

And yes, neither me nor Calhoun have managed to break him out of the habit to address us by our ranks. Or, in my case, phony rank. He doesn't even add our names to the rank, it's just Sergeant this, and Lieutenant that. It's obvious he's not doing it to be rude, it's just one of his quirks, I guess.

"Same as the last time you asked me four hours ago," I chuckle and gesture towards my lung-on-a-stick. "Still breathing. Though I'd prefer it if I was doing it under my own power."

He smiles at that and checks the readout. "I imagine you would. Although it is physically possible - unlikely, but possible - for humans to breathe on a single lung, it is nearly unprecedented. It will only be another day until your cloned lung has finished growing. Until then-"

"No physical exertion, avoid stress and aggravation, I know."

"Good, good. Now, I must be about, have a pleasant afternoon." With a final scribble onto his omni-tool, the drell doctor takes off down the hallway, softly humming to himself, leaving me standing in my door looking out at nothing in particular.

"Hey, Grayson," the blonde across from me calls as she traipses out of her own room.

"Yeah?"

"You gonna just stand there daydreaming all afternoon long, soldier? You owe me a rematch."

I look over at her. "Sorry, was just thinking about stuff."

"Don't strain yourself."

"Ha, ha," I mutter. "Can I take a raincheck on that rematch? Not really feeling up to a hand of Skyllian Five right now."

"Sure." She shrugs and crosses her arms, leaning against the doorjamb. "You never told me how you lost that lung, by the way."

"And you never told me how you got in here with your arm hanging on by a thread."

"Fair enough, but I asked first."

I shrug, seeing no harm in telling her. To be honest, we've talked, but mostly about mundane stuff. Other than each other's names, we haven't really spoken much about how we ended up here. Doesn't help that I suck at small-talk, and she's...well, an abrasive, hyper-aggressive, and brash marine. And I mean that in a good way. In the most flattering way possible. In the _she-can-kick-your-ass-if-you-disagree-at-the-drop-of-a-hat_ kind of way.

"Took a bullet for my CO," I simply say.

Calhoun eyes me critically for a moment, her blue eyes narrowing. "Great," she finally huffs. "Another frakin' hero."

"Coming from you, that doesn't exactly sound like a good thing," I reply with a chuckle. Honestly, I'm not offended, because I'm no hero. Hell no, I'd be the first to point to Shepard if anyone asks for one. And especially right now, I'm not feeling particularly heroic anyway.

"Heroes _die_," is her curt reply. "And people like me get to risk our necks to save your sorry asses."

"Ah." It's even understandable from her point of view. Hell, I'm almost inclined to agree, were it not for the fact that I pity the fool who'd try and _save_ Shepard, because if there's anyone who can take care of themselves, it's that woman. I'm not sure how classified Ash's assassination attempt on Shepard is, though, so I just keep my mouth shut.

It's Calhoun who breaks the slightly uncomfortable silence between us. What is it with me and women and ending up in uncomfortable silences? "Got my arm shredded on some god-forsaken backwater colony world. Hot, humid jungles, freaky living plants and mutated shit. But by all that is holy, my men held the line."

"Feros, huh?" Yeah, so I recognized her name from the Feros mission report.

"How'd you know?"

"Shepard told me." I shake my head briefly as I think about said mission report. "Sounded like some nasty stuff went down there."

Calhoun snorts in disgust. "That's putting it mildly. They were _making_ things down there. Mutating things. Messing with shit humans shouldn't be dealing with."

That brings back thoughts of the overgrown - literally overgrown, Kahoku's medical and scientific examiners aboard the _Valor_ confirmed on our trip back from Binthu - Cerberus bodies we recovered from the facilities. They weren't just mutated, they were _fused_ with plant material in some sort of grotesque transplant, like someone took a piece of the Thorian and grafted it surgically into them, into their brains, their spines, and let it grow from there. It just confirmed my fears that it wasn't an accidental failure in containment. This was an organized experiment by Cerberus, probably on Tim's orders. That just makes the whole thing even more terrifying. He's already starting with his crazy experimentation, and it's not a good feeling. At all. I wonder if Miranda knows about it, and what she's feeling about it if she does.

I got about two pages into the sixty-page report when I had to drop it and run for the bathroom.

"So, you're with the _Normandy_, huh?" she asks after a little while. "How come I didn't see you on the ground team?"

"Recalled for special assignment. Met back up with the _Normandy_ a couple days ago, then this-" I indicate the tubes sticking out of my chest, "happened, and here I am."

"Ah." She tips her head back and closes her eyes, trying to enjoy the artificial sunlight streaming in through the glass ceiling. "I guess I can understand why you'd take one for Shepard. She's a good commander."

"Yeah. Yeah, she is."

And that's all we say. It doesn't really bother me, because I'm not much for randomly talking to other people, anyway, and neither is she. Our conversations help to breach the daily monotony and distract us from the occasional bout of boredom, but for the most part, we have nothing to talk _about_.

"So, you navy?" she asks, a little uncharacteristically of her. In the two days I've been here she hasn't really said much beyond _hello_ and challenging me to a game of Skyllian Five. Which, by the way, I suck at.

"SpecOps." I almost wince at admitting that. I'm pretty sure most SpecOps personnel are, well, _not_ me. And by that I mean taller, buffer, and generally much more badass than your average engineer just a couple of years out of college.

Calhoun actually smirks at that as she crosses her arms. "First combat deployment?"

"Third combat mission. I'm an engineer."

"Huh. And you landed with Shepard? Not bad, kid," she says with a hint of grudging respect in her tone. "Must've taken guts."

"Not nearly as much as you think," I mutter in return. She hasn't heard me, so out loud I reply, "didn't have much of a choice. Couldn't just sit around at a desk, not once I knew what I did. To be honest?" I add with a brief laugh, "I'm terrified every time Shepard makes me go with her."

"That's good. Fear keeps you focused, keeps you alive." Calhoun looks up at me. "Unless you let it consume you."

"I try not to. It's a hell of a lot easier when you see Shepard in action." It is, really. That woman is a veritable whirlwind of destruction, a dancing dervish of biotics, firepower, and pyrotechnics that puts every single Hong Kong martial arts flick to shame. When you're standing next to her - for the brief second before she Charges right at the enemy, anyway - and you see what kind of damage _she_ is capable of, it's hard to be terrified by your enemies.

The marine smirks at that. "That's N7s for you."

"You sound like a bit of a badass, yourself. Ever think of applying?"

"For N7?" she shakes her head. "Hell no. N7s don't _apply_, they're _chosen_. And have you seen the assignments they get? It's all top-secret mumbo-jumbo and hush-hush. They shut you up when it's convenient for _them_."

"I know that feeling."

"Know some uncomfortable truths for someone up the ladder, eh?"

"Something like that."

"Boy, you're full of idle conversation today, aren't you, soldier?"

I just shrug and lean my head back. "Like I said, lots of things to think about."

"Let me guess," Calhoun muses idly," women troubles?"

I just mumble my reply, causing her to lean over and cup a hand behind her ear with a knowing smirk.

"I didn't catch that, what'd you say?"

"I said, yeah."

"Shepard?" the blonde marine cocks her head curiously. "I could see that."

"No, not her. Not Shepard." At least I don't think so. "And it's not what you think. It's not...romantic."

That actually seems to take her by surprise. "It's not? Good for you, then. Romantic involvement is nothing but unecessary trouble."

"That so?"

"Take it from someone who knows, kid. So, what's the real problem here?"

"Didn't exactly take you for Dr. Phil."

"Who?"

Waving her off, I chuckle lightly. At least one thing didn't survive the last hundred years for the betterment of humanity, though people might disagree with me on that. "Nevermind. Why so interested in what's going on in my life, anyway?"

"I'm bored." Calhoun smirks right at me. "What, you thought there was some deep reason behind it? I'm bored and I only have one arm. One-handed pushups only occupy me for so long."

With a shrug, I figure it couldn't hurt to get a perspective on my whole situation with Miranda and Cerberus. In a very, very abridged version, anyway. If nothing else, it'll at least take my mind of thinking about how to, if not prevent _Sovereign_ from attacking, then at least how to minimize casualties. Especially while I'm stuck in a hospital. Even with Anderson and Kahoku forewarned, they can't move assets into place until Hackett has his evidence.

And for the first time since arriving in the Mass Effect universe, my hands are - figuratively - quite thoroughly tied. All my foreknowledge isn't doing me a lick of good, and nothing I can do will change the fact that the Reaper is coming for the Citadel. It's a helpless feeling, and I don't like it. At all.

But despite that, I can't bring myself to say more than, "I trusted someone I shouldn't have. Got burned. Simple as that."

She eyes me critically, then shrugs. "If you say so."

"I do. Just thinking things over. Mostly about what an idiot I was."

The blonde woman turns around and heads back to her room. "You know why I'll always be a marine?" she asks, pausing in the door.

"Why's that?"

"N7s might be able to hand-pick their squads. They've got the resources and their pick of assignments. But at the end of the day, the humble marine has only to worry about himself, the marine next to him, and the mission. The higher up you go, the more hidden agendas are waiting to bite you in the ass. It's the nature of the beast."


	29. Chapter 29

**Author's Note: **Here's the next installment :) Hope y'all enjoy! Oh, on a side note, a few replies:

_maesde_: Yes, last chapter was a bit of a filler...but a break every now and then is needed, after all, because you're right, a lot of stuff is about to go down.

_Lithos Maitreya_: Yeah, I noticed the typo on Kohaku's name a little late, lol.

_TheIdiocyWizard_: Yes, I know the Collectors arrive a few months after the events of ME 1, especially with the attack on the Normandy. However, things don't really start getting serious and "on the radar" until shortly before ME 2, prompting the acceleration of the Lazarus Project. As for Saren being on Ilos, yes he was in the game. However, my recollection of events isn't perfect, and frankly, I've gotten a bit tired of reading SIs of people who remember every event and sequence of events with perfect clarity. It just doesn't happen, so I figured I may as well add a little uncertainty in Grayson's memory.

_Aspriles_: That is, indeed, the case in the game, but it always struck me as somewhat contrived. Saren being ousted as a rogue spectre of course limited his access to the Citadel, and while Sovereign did need to build up enough forces to launch an attack, when he does, he pretty much decimates the Citadel defenses. I reckon with an accelerated schedule that won't let Saren collect enough forces on Ilos, the best way to bust into the Citadel without leaving him stranded alone without support is to land with the rest of the invasion force. I'm sure the Conduit was much more convenient as a backdoor to launch a secondary, surprise attack, but given the option of going alone/with minimal support, or going with the main landing force, he'd probably go with the main landing.

_Rob DS Zeta_: uh...wha?

_FloridaMagpie_: I am in fact more fond of Ash than Kaidan. I do have plans for Ash...muahahahahaha.

**Chapter Twenty-Nine**

The faint smell of disinfectant is the thing that wakes me up. It tickles your nose, just lightly at first, then it becomes an annoying itch. And then you have to sneeze. And then you wake up. Judging from the dimmed lighting in my room, I'm guessing the ward is in its night-cycle, and the machines are slowly, gently beeping somewhere next to me. The strange cold and empty feeling in my chest is gone, though, replaced by a dull ache.

It takes a moment for my brain to process the information that I went under the knife for my lung implant...how many hours ago? Craning my head to glance at the bedside clock, I have to squint to read it. Ah...about twelve hours ago. The room is eerily quiet, and so is the rest of the hospital wing. No bustling nurses or doctors making their rounds, which is a marked difference from the hospitals I know, but I guess if you have VIs checking your vitals and notifying the medical personnel of anything of importance, that's not really a necessity anymore.

Most patients find the quiet a nice change from the busy daytime.

Me? I find it eerie. Almost like you're all alone in this big open space.

And then you look out the window, and there's this whole other world in the darkened ward, with blinking lights and zipping skycars and starships hovering overhead with only their navigational lights on. You think the Manhattan skyline or Sydney or Tokyo are something? Try setting them against a backdrop of stars and with a myriad of moving lights in the sky, and you have an idea of what the Citadel looks like at night.

The best part? In here, you have a perfect view of all that, but you can't hear anything. It makes it almost seem surreal, mystical.

Breathtaking.

Letting my head sink back into the pillow, I close my eyes and listen for a moment. It really is dead quiet except for low hum of the power grid and the occasional beep of a piece of machinery. My mind drifts back to the surgery - it's a standard procedure, with very little risk of complication, or so I've been told. Naturally, to compensate, most of the complications tend to arise _after_ the surgery, when the body tries to adapt to the implant and could reject it with potentially fatal results.

The odds of that in a healthy human with enough time to tailor the grown implant to the patient's genetic makeup, though, are slim to none. It's not there was an alternative, anyway, and who knows? If I keep going I might end up like the Six-Million-Dollar Man. Yeah, right.

But my mind must be playing tricks on me, because I could've sworn I saw Miranda in the lounge before I got carted into the operating room.

I feel kind of guilty that I haven't contacted her since getting back from the _Valor_, but what the hell was I supposed to say? _Hey, I'm back, let's get together for lunch and I'll tell you all about how I ruined one of your boss's little science projects_? Yeah, no. Or how about, _hey, you know that personal business I went off on? Yeah, I'm back. By the way, I got one of my lungs blown out. Huzzah!_

"Man, explaining this is going to suck," I groan and bury my head deeper into the pillow.

"You've got _that_ right."

The voice from the other side of my bed, the side facing the door, startles me, and almost causes me to jump right out of the bed. The little heart monitor spikes accordingly, emitting a protesting shrill bleep for a second before I get myself back under control.

Holy freakin' caulymelons, that woman is _sneaky_. "Miranda?" I croak out, barely able to make out her silhouette against the dark room.

"I leave you alone for a couple of days and you end up in the hospital." She steps out of the shadows and into the little light that is streaming in through the window. "I taught you to take care of yourself better than that."

"So you did." I crane my head around to look at her, somehow not really wanting to muster the energy to sit up. "Why are you here, Miranda?"

"Heard that the _Valor_ had come back in. Figured you left aboard her, you might come back on her. Turns out I was right." She eyes all the monitoring equipment I'm hooked up to - even more than before the surgery, if such a thing is even possible - and finally settles her gaze back on me. "What happened?"

"Long story. Probably one that should be classified to all sorts of ridiculous levels."

The Cerberus operative tilts her head and nods briefly, acknowledging that that's a conversation best left for another place and time. She's quiet for a long time, and I'm wondering if that's all she came here to say...or why she's even here in the first place.

It's not like I have anywhere else to go, she must have known that once I got out of the hospital I was likely to come back. Is she just here to drag me back to Cerberus? A wry grin makes its way to my face at the thought of that. No, that's too simple for Miranda. She doesn't do simple.

But right now, I don't feel like talking shop. Hell, I don't really feel like talking about much at all, because this silence between us is not awkward for a change. It's actually...almost comfortable. Almost like things used to be. And it only took me getting shot.

Logical conclusion: I should get shot more often.

Yeah, no.

A brief rustle of cloth alerts me to the fact that she's moved from where she was sitting at the side f my bed, and I force my eyes to open. "Miranda?" I ask, a little tiredly.

"Yes?"

"We need to talk," I say, almost regretfully, because I don't want to spoil this peace between us.

She looks down from where she's standing, and I can feel her hand on my shoulder as she gives it a brief squeeze. "We will," she acknowledges. "We will, but for now, get some rest."

T

The next time I wake up it's already noon, according to the bedside clock. Well, what passes for noon on the Citadel. Weird 27-hour schedule and all. Miranda's gone; her comforting presence has been replaced by our drell doctor who is checking his omni-tool and referencing all the shit I'm hooked up to. Hell if I know what all that stuff is - heart monitors, cortical monitors, EEGs, EKGs, what-the-hell-ever they could think of.

Seriously, now that I can get a good look at it in the daylight, I look like freaking science experiment gone horribly wrong.

"Ah, you're awake, good, good. How are you feeling today, Lieutenant?" the drell asks in the same pleasant tone he always uses.

It takes me a second to get my bearings and focus on all the sensations coming from my body. It feels a little weird, but that hollow feeling in my chest is gone. I almost can't tell that there's a new lung where a gaping hole used to be not a few days ago, it's working _that_ well, and apparently, I'm off the breathing apparatus.

"Pretty good, actually," I manage after a little while, blinking to adjust my eyes to the light. I'd say sunlight, but there's not exactly a sun to give off light when it comes to the Citadel. "Pain's gone," I add.

"Respiration is normal, oxygen saturation satisfactory. Integration proceeding as projected," he notes happily in that lilting, almost alliterative tone of his. "Schedule a few weeks of rest to complete the assimilation process, and you should have no further troubles."

"Great. When can I get released?"

The doctor pulls up charts on his omni-tool and pokes around at some numbers and figures. "A day, perhaps two. Would like to keep you for observation until we are sure there are no immediate complications that require urgent care. Is that satisfactory?"

Two more days. Huh, I've got two days to come up with an explanation for Miranda about this little adventure. Or perhaps not-so-little adventure, considering all that's happened. "That's fine, doc," I tell him.

"Good, good. Must make my rounds now, the Sergeant awaits."

"Say hi to her from me, will you?"

A couple of hours later, I'm about ready to jump out of my skin. You know how I said that the two days waiting for the damn surgery were boring as hell? It's twice as boring now, because I'm confined to bedrest until tomorrow. What the hell do you do when you're supposed to lie in bed all day? They even took my omni-tool away when I went under the knife, but fortunately, I manage to find it in a drawer in the nightstand.

The reason I can be so cavalier about leaving my omni-tool with all its sensitive anti-Reaper info around in a nightstand is actually something that caught me by surprise the first time I tried to open one of said drawers. This being a military hospital, there's a certain kind of...security affiliated with that tag. Let's just say that when I say _nightstand_, it would be more accurate to call it a nightstand-shaped retina-encoded locked safe. Because that's what it is. I'm serious. Not yanking your chain here, every patient has a personal safe sitting right next to their bed with all their most valuable belongings in it.

Which suits me just fine, because in my haste to, well, kinda _not die_, I completely forgot about the fact that I carry around classified and secret information in my omni-tool. I know, I suck at this whole spy business.

Grabbing the gauntlet and slipping it on my left wrist, I power it up and wait for the holographic screen to come up. These holo-displays are really, really convenient, I tell you. You don't get tired of holding them up like you would a tablet, even a lightweight one, and the input sensitivity on them is just incredible.

Browsing the news gets me nothing of interest, though, as does flicking through my archive files. Just for kicks, I look up vacation spots across the galaxy. Hey, who knows, maybe I'll be able to squeeze in some time off. I totally could talk Tim into funding an all-expenses paid vacation at some seven-star resort - turian stars, apparently they count them differently - for me and Miranda. That woman sure could do with a vacation.

So could I, come to think of it.

A couple of minutes later, I finally surrender and turn off my omni-tool. There's nothing interesting to watch or read on there, and that leaves me staring out the window. I almost wish Calhoun came over to visit, but the gruff marine sergeant never ventures into other people's rooms for some reason. Hell, I'd even take a visit from Miranda at this point.

As the Citadel slowly rotates around its axis, I catch a nice vista of the far side, away from the presidium. It's like looking down at a small strip of a city from a highrise, and then looking off to the left and right and realizing you're floating on an island in space. With the arms open as they are, maybe a handful of kilometers separate us from the nearest ward, and looking up, there is just the artificial sky and beyond it almost an identical reflection of our own skyline.

Well, _almost_ identical. It sure looks similar from this far away.

Ships and skycars are moving across my view, gently rotating as they pass through the demarcation line between our ward's gravitational field and that of the ward above us. A few are even headed for the presidium. It's really quite a sight.

It's even more of a sight when an entire wing of Alliance ships suddenly drifts into view, lazily making their way from the far opening of the Citadel past all the usual ward docking ports. They swing by overhead with a quiet hum and nary a rattle of glass, and I can count at least a dozen frigates and cruisers. Holy crap, what's going on?

Turning on my omni-tool again in the hopes of catching something on the news, I tune in to an asari reporter standing in the presidium commons overlooking a balcony and the lower docking ports right as the first Alliance ship slides into view on maneuvering thrusters.

"The sudden influx of human Alliance vessels last night has raised suspicion among the Council; though the leader of the human fleet claims that he is here for purely diplomatic reasons, sources indicate that the number of ships exiting the mass relay and standing by just outside of the Citadel's effective range comprises a significant part of what the Systems Alliance calls the Fifth Fleet. Aides from Councillor Tevan's office have reported that Alliance Admirals Hackett and Kahoku have requested an audience with the Council." The asari looks up at something, then back at the camera.

"Reports from the docking bay indicate that Admiral Hackett and his retinue have disembarked the courier frigate and are on their way to an emergency meeting with the Council. Since the meeting will be held behind closed doors, we have no further information on the topics to be discussed. The Citadel Fleet has been mobilized on order of Councillor Sparatus to match the human ships that seem to be maintaining a heightened state of alert. It is currently unknown if they are preparing for an attack, or if they are the vanguard of a larger force that is yet to come. The Council has not divulged any further information, but it is expected that, if this _is _an act of human aggression, the full might of the Citadel Council will be brought to bear on will keep you informed of any new developments. Back to the studio."

The display changes to that of a news studio. Hell, it looks like Wolf Blitzer might've felt right at home there. An asari and a salarian are looking back at me, with the salarian breaking the silence first. "Thank you, Olari. This is curious, very curious indeed. Human show of force not seen since the Relay 314 Incident. Prelude to imminent attack, perhaps?"

As the asari gears up to reply on the possibility of a human coup d'etat, I tune both of them out. What the hell is Hackett doing here? And if that report is to be believed, he brought as much of the Fifth as he could grab. There's no way Shepard made it to Virmire, the Mu Relay, and then through to Ilos yet. No freaking way. I even mapped the whole thing out.

Two days from Binthu to Virmire. One day on Virmire. One day transit from Virmire to the Mu Relay, a day's travel to Ilos, and then one day on Ilos. Which is...

Today.

Suddenly, my gut drops into my feet as I throw back the blankets and rush towards the window. I've got a really, really bad feeling all of a sudden. I'm praying that I'm wrong, but when it's for something bad, I'm rarely wrong on my gut feeling.

When nothing happens for a long moment, I'm almost tempted to let out a sigh of relief and think that perhaps, this is one of the rare occasions when I'm wrong about the shit hitting the fan, but it never hurts to check. Flipping my omni-tool back on, I fire off a brief message to Miranda on our direct line, just in case. It's simple, brief, and contains five words.

_We're almost out of time_.

The news reel comes back on as I tab back to it. The asari is still talking, with her salarian co-host nodding his long, bean-like head every once in a while. "There have been reports of Alliance naval vessels acting without Council authorization on the fringes of Council-controlled space," she says, her nasally arrogant tone already grating on my nerves. "Any such human vessels conducting combat operations without the proper military vocation by Councillor Sparatus could technically be considered an act of war."

"Anti-piracy operations, perhaps? Many, many reasons for naval vessels on the borders of the Terminus systems," the salarian interrupts at this point, his expression somewhat unreadable. "STG also conducts operations without Council knowledge or approval at times."

"Or perhaps a set up for a more elaborate attack on a Citadel race. After all, it was humans who assaulted the asari capital world, had the audacity to defile our holiest site during a sacrosanct festival, and caused dozens of casualties." The asari glares in self-righteousness, and I can't help but groan. I _knew_ Tim and Miranda's little scheme wouldn't be without repercussions. Writing it off as a terrorist act is nice and well, but then you have to be able to produce said terrorists. Difficult to say the least when the Alliance is, for the most part, unaware of Cerberus's existence, much less their involvement on Thessia.

"Unlikely. Humans have shown no indication of hostility towards Citadel races after Relay 314 incident. Much more likely naval ships acting on intelligence to eradicate terrorist threat. Reports state that human admiral brings warning of a grave threat to Citadel. Suggested closing the arms in a preemptive defensive measure."

"The humans are an inherently aggressive race. Their expansionist drive without regard for galactic safety and regulations is dangerous and their warlike attitude is a threat to the stability of Council space," the asari anchor counters.

Man, these guys are almost as bad as, say, Candy Crowley and Glenn Beck back home. Throw them in a room, and watch them go at it. If it weren't so depressing to watch it'd be utterly hilarious. Hell, it's still hilarious. I've got to give the salarian points for belligerence, though, because he's not letting his partner intimidate him from playing devil's advocate. "Humans bring new knowledge, new perspective. Freshness to stagnating galactic policy. Even Relay 314 Incident was sign of human potential."

"Only their potential to wage war and for destruction. What other race has, in a span of ten human years, managed to rebuild their military to a force that can rival the turian navy?"

"And yet humanity has managed to develop at a faster rate than any other spacefaring Citadel species. Most remarkable achievement, especially if sustained." The salarian actually _looks_ impressed. I think I'm starting to like that guy. Not because he's in humanity's corner - well, not _entirely_ - but because he seems pretty honest. For a journalist. "Human drive for exploration is understandable, Citadel regulations regarding opening of new relays was unknown at the time. No first contact made, they had no way to know."

And now it just devolves into a piece about how humans came into contact with the Council races to begin with, yada yada yada. Goddammit, I hate the news sometimes. They tend to go off on worse tangents than my old aerodynamics prof.

But that just brings my thoughts right back to what Hackett is doing here. Shepard can't be back from Ilos yet...well, if she followed the game plan and sent Joker back, that is. If she just transmitted Kirrahe's findings to the fleet, then Anderson and Hackett could very well have a case to mobilize the fleet by now.

Between Kahoku, Anderson, and Hackett, I'm sure they can come up with a nice little reception for _Sovereign_ once he gets here. I forgot if Saren ever was on Ilos or not, but it doesn't make any sense for him to go there now, not when he knows time is of the essence and he can just as easily infiltrate the Citadel from on board _Sovereign_. He _had_ to have been on Ilos for the game, though, because at some point he brought geth troops to fortify the place.

But we accelerated the schedule. We denied him the relay's location, so the only other way he could have found out is if he either recaptured the rachni queen, or from Shiala. And that last one is a long shot. What if Saren _doesn't_ come through the relay? He's got to be aware of the troop movements around the Citadel. If Hackett is here and he brought as big a fleet as the media seems to indicate, then Saren has to know his window of opportunity is closing.

There's no time for him to go to Ilos, I realize with a sudden start. Up until Virmire, the timetable has followed the game in terms of the order of events pretty well. Which means that the _Normandy_ likely encountered the Reaper and Saren on Virmire, but there's no way they would've made it through the Mu Relay before Shepard. No, Saren's not going to come through the Conduit this time.

He's going to make his move, and he's got to make it soon.

That also means Shepard is going to have no opposition on Ilos, which is good.

On the down side, if she finds the Conduit, she'll end up here long before Saren gets here.

Unless...

Unless Saren attacks _today_.

I rifle through my omni-tool's menus for the secure comm codes to Admiral Kahoku's _Valor_. They've got to be in there somewhere, along with the authorization codes I pilfered from the first time I contacted Kahoku. A hospital room is not exactly the best place for such a conversation, but at least it's unlikely to have been bugged. The comm unit beeps a few times, then, "Operator, SSV _Valor_. Identify yourself."

"Second Lieutenant Patrick Grayson, Alliance SpecOps. Get me Admiral Kahoku or Commander Radmanski."

The voice on the other end hesitates for a moment. "Authorization confirmed. Patching you through to the Admiral."

Letting out a brief sigh of relief, I breathe a quiet "thanks," into the comm, and wait for the connection to go through.

"_Valor_ Actual. What can I do for you, Ghost?" Admiral Kahoku's gruff voice comes through the speaker.

"Admiral, how many Alliance ships do we have here?"

"That's on a need-to-know basis, Lieutenant." He mutters something that sounds suspiciously like _damn news_ under his breath, then continues. "The situation is under control, if our rogue spectre shows, we're ready for him."

"Has Commander Shepard reported back yet?" I ask him. Maybe Shepard's back from Ilos already. Or she's sent a report, or something.

There's a brief pause before the admiral answers. "Admiral Hackett is currently in charge of the situation. After consulting with me and Captain Anderson on the Commander's report on the STG team's findings on Virmire, Admiral Hackett has decided to mobilize the Fifth Fleet and send a vanguard to the Citadel. We're taking the threat very seriously, Lieutenant, and the Admiral is meeting with the Council to discuss our concerns."

So Shepard made it to Virmire. As much as I want to ask about any casualties, there's a sudden sense of urgency that has the hairs on the back of my neck standing up straight. "Any further word from her, sir?"

"Negative. She's on her way through the Mu Relay, just like we discussed. What's this all about?"

"Have you heard from the _Normandy_ at all, after she made her run for the relay?"

"Negative. Hang on." The line clicks off for a second, before he returns. "You're in luck. We're getting a call from the _Normandy_."

"Can you patch me in to listen?"

There's a long pause as he considers this highly unusual request. And on the inside I'm praying that he'll let me, because I have to know what the hell is going on. My actions so far have completely fucked up any kind of timeline I might have had for events, making the prediction of Saren's attack impossible. _Come on, you owe me one_, I chant silently.

"You're on the secondary line," he finally replies, and I let out a quiet sigh of relief.

"Thank you, Admiral."

"_Normandy_, this is _Valor _Actual. Go ahead."

"_Valor_, this is Lieutenant Moreau, you've got to get all available ships to the Citadel immediately," Joker's anxious voice comes through. I turn down the volume all the way and fumble around for an earwig.

"Slow down, Lieutenant. Give me a sitrep."

I can hear Joker take a couple of deep breaths before he answers. "Commander Shepard went down to a prothean outpost. We lost communications with her once she'd entered the complex, some ruins from our initial scans. Mostly underground. When we reestablished contact, she ordered me to the Citadel. Admiral, you've got to get all available ships to the Citadel, Saren's headed there right now."

"Calm down, Lieutenant, we're aware of the situation." Kahoku's gruff, calm voice contrasts sharply against Joket's nervousness. "How do you know that the _Sovereign_ is on the way?"

"Shepard told me to tell you that. The Conduit is a back door into the Citadel, but since Saren doesn't have access to it, the only thing he can do is-"

"A frontal assault," the admiral finishes grimly. "Lieutenant, I have a new assignment for you. Get to Arcturus Station, get in touch with Captain Anderson there, and tell him to bring the rest of the fleet."

"Yes, sir."

"Where's Commander Shepard?"

Joker hesitates for a moment before replying. "She...she went to take the Conduit to the Citadel, sir. Said it was the fastest way for her to get there and intercept Saren."

That bad feeling I had? It just got worse. If Saren's going to fight a huge boarding action, then C-Sec is horribly unprepared for it. Especially with Hackett aboard the Citadel. If he somehow gets killed in the fighting...

"Admiral!" a voice I don't know comes through the comms muffled, probably from somewhere aboard the _Valor_'s CIC. "We've got an unknown relay event just off to starboard!"

The rock in my gut drops. "Tell the ships to get away from the relay, _now_! Get them moving, get firing solutions on possible exit events, but get them out of the way before-"

My warning comes too late as a horrendous crash echoes through the line, followed by static as communications with the SSV _Valor_ terminate. Tapping into the Alliance military comm frequencies, I can hear a terrible cacophony of scared voices and barked orders.

"All ships, move to engage!"

"Weapons free, weapons free, fire at will!"

"Strike craft, form up. Squadron commanders, pick your targets."

"Bring her about, we need to-"

"She's coming right for us-"

"_Columbia_'s defenses are down!"

"All pilots, clear _Columbia _airspace, all pilots get clear, _right frakkin' now_!"

"_Columbia_'s gone, oh my God, _Columbia_'s gone!"

And then the voices of hundreds of screaming, dying people fills the comm as I look up into the sky, and where the stars used to wink at me, now hundreds of tiny little flashes so far away are the only indication of the people fighting and dying out there.

The Reapers are here.


	30. Chapter 30

**Author's Note: **Let's see how much trouble we can cause in the ME 'verse this time, shall we? Enjoy the beginning of the end...of Mass Effect 1.

**Chapter Thirty**

For a moment, I stand there, frozen in absolute horror as I listen to the Alliance comm bands. It's too late for them; my heart sinks as I realize that I might have just made matters worse. I don't know how many ships Hackett had out there, but any hopes of minimizing Alliance losses has now officially gone out the window. If the Fifth has the firepower left to kill _Sovereign_, it isn't going to come cheap.

And even so, that's not the worst of what's coming. I know they're coming, I can almost feel it. My hands are trembling at the mere thought of the destruction it's going to cause, but at least I know where I need to go.

The presidium.

It doesn't take me long to get out of the hospital robe and into a shirt and pants and then out my door. I'm about to turn down the corridor that leads to the hospital exit when a woman's voice calls out to me.

"Hey, soldier, where the hell you going?"

I turn to Calhoun, not quite sure how to approach this. "We're under attack. Some crackhead renegade spectre with a shitton of geth is about to try and board the Citadel. I need to go help."

"Then I'm coming with you," she says evenly, her tone not leaving an ounce of doubt as to how she survived for a week on a creeper-infested planet.

"You only have one working arm."

"And you only have one working lung," Calhoun shoots back easily. "I'll try and contact some of my squad, they're on leave here."

I don't have time to argue with her, so I just nod. "Grab your omni-tool, tell them to try and link up. Help C-Sec secure the hospital, if at all possible." There was no indication of how much damage the other wards took after _Sovereign_'s attack, mostly because it wasn't ever mentioned _which_ ward you walked around in during Mass Effect 1, but the one thing I do know is that Tayseri Ward will be hardest hit, possibly due to debris impact. As to the damage to Aroch Ward? I have no idea, but I'm pretty sure it can't be a bad idea to try and defend the hospital.

The rest of my stuff is in the lockers one level down. That doesn't include my armor or weapons, but just my personal belongings that I wanted to keep on me. The rest of my stuff - my guns, my armor, were sent to my listed residence.

Which, ironically, is Miranda's apartment over in Zakera Ward. I don't suppose the hospital has an armory locker? Nah, that'd be just too convenient.

But I've got my force lance here. I was planning on tinkering with it some, so I've managed to talk hospital management into letting me bring it and some tools under the pretense of it being a non-weapon project. It did help that it didn't set off any of the weapons scanners that are set to detect mass-effect and eezo powered small arms.

And I've got a feeling that I'm going to need any weapon I can get my hands on, even if it's a barely-functional prototype with ten smart bullets and a taser. Hell, it beats going against geth bare-handed. It only takes me a moment to key my omni-tool to hack, and with an overload primed - just in case - Calhoun and I make our way down the stairs.

The locker is easy enough to open with my omni-tool's cyberwarfare software, and out comes a little bag of tools, including some old-fashioned ones. Old-fashioned by Mass Effect standards, anyway, but you never know when something like a handheld plasma torch or portable hydraulic jack can come in handy.

And then there's my force lance. Ignoring Calhoun's skeptical look that just about screams _we came here for that_, I power it up and spend a moment to check it for functionality. "All right," I mutter, "it's showtime."

Saren and _Sovereign_ are here, the geth are about to begin a massive invasion that overruns C-Sec and Citadel defenses enough for the turian to get to the top of the presidium, and we're about to come face-to-face with a Reaper who may as well be _Harbinger_'s twin brother when it comes to sheer firepower. Our plan to have the Fifth Fleet help fortify the Citadel has failed miserably, the advance Alliance task force is in shambles, and the Citadel Fleet is scrambling to mount a defense - and is being cut to ribbons while doing so.

So it won't be long now till this place is swarming with killer robots.

I should be utterly terrified, and part of me is.

But there's no way out now, nothing left to do but man up and deal with the consequences of my actions. And if I'm to be entirely honest with myself, I'm a little part scared, a little part determined, and a _whole_ lot pissed. At Saren, at the Reapers, even at myself. There's just so much shit going down that it just makes me angry and want to put an end to it all. And if I have to blast my way through an army of geth and Saren to do it, then I damn well will.

Or die trying. But let's not dwell on that. Yeah, let's not.

Besides, with everything that's changed there's no guarantee Shepard is going to make it in time to stop him from closing the Citadel arms and letting _Sovereign_ connect to the station's mainframe to open the darkspace relay, and if I'm the only one standing between him and his success, then I'll damn well buy Shepard as much time to haul her ass to the Presidium as I can.

"I don't suppose you kept a gun around here?" I ask Calhoun, half in jest.

She just shakes her head, then pulls up a map on her own omni-tool. "There's a C-Sec office not far from here. They'll have some small arms. Nothing military-grade, but better than nothing. My men are on their way here."

"All right." I pick up the little targeting eyepiece I fashioned to go with the smart bullets I had the omni-tool fabricate, and slip it behind my right ear. A click of a switch turns it on, and a small reticule flashes to life on the thin display plate. Thank the divine for image and target recognition and projectile guidance software, because there's no way I could've put sights on my force lance. Well, it may not look as fashionable as Garrus's, but it does the job. "Let's go, then."

"Where are we headed?"

"The Presidium."

T

The first part of our trip is actually relatively easy - apart from having to argue our way past the front desk, which ended abruptly when security came rushing in, announcing that the Citadel was under attack and hostile forces had breached the docking perimeter. It doesn't take long for the regular Citadel crowd to turn into a hysterical, screaming mass of people trying to get as far away from the docks as possible, while C-Sec officers are rushing against the flow of people, trying to direct them to shelters in a somewhat organized manner. Others are grabbing whatever weapons they can find are are trying to halt the geth advance.

Unfortunately, there's not a lot of C-Sec, and a _whole_ boatload of geth. Literally. Several of them, in fact. But somehow, miraculously, it's not until we're in a skycar that we encounter the first geth troops. Let's not mention how it was acquired, all right? By then, the space battle outside has taken a turn for the desperate, and while the Citadel Fleet and remnants of the Fifth have managed to destroy some of _Sovereign_'s escort ships, the Reaper himself has blown a nice, straight line through the defending forces and is currently launching dozens of dropships.

If I look up and squint my eyes, I can see his black shape in the distance, highlighted against the artificial sky which is now criss-crossed with tracer fire whipping through the air, fireballs of dying ships, and streaks of missiles and rail slugs fired in a futile attempt to breach _Sovereign_'s barriers.

Yeah, the fertilizer officially has hit the ventilator.

The geth, for the most part, ignore us since they are too busy shooting up shit on the ground. That, though, changes when we approach the beleaguered C-Sec office that Calhoun is navigating us to. From up here it doesn't look real good already, and I can only imagine how bad it is on the ground. A small group of C-Sec troops barricaded themselves in and are firing on the advancing geth on the ground level. And while they're dropping geth by the handful, there's just that many more pouring out of the dropship that has set down a half klick down the ward.

Calhoun grits her teeth at the controls and puts us into a steep dive, right down on top of the advancing geth forces. The robots look up just in time to see her level out the skycar, and I reflexively duck under the console as they start slamming into the front engine block and windshield like flies. The marine next to me never takes her foot off the accelerator, mowing the vehicle through the geth ranks for as long as she has altitude and then some.

Finally, the bottom of the skycar hits the ground and our forward momentum jerks to a stop with a bone-jarring crash accompanied by the shriek of tortured metal on concrete. I uncurl myself from the little ball I wound myself into and poke my head up from under the seat. Holy freaking frick, the windshield's gone, and next to me Calhoun is gripping her recently healed shoulder in pain as she sits upright. The vehicle is totalled, the engine smashed in with little bits and pieces of geth stuck in it.

Oh look, there's a geth arm danging right above me. Even as I turn to look, a geth flashlight head falls out of the sky and clatters onto the back of the skycar's frame. There's no time to ask her what the hell she was thinking, and deep down, I already know. We both know the C-Sec office is going to be overrun soon, but neither of us can just pass by and leave them all to die. Even if I have absolutely no idea what the two of us can do about it.

Heaving up against the side door, I manage to prop it open and reach across to sling an arm around her waist. "Come on Sarge, we gotta go. Your little stunt put a big, red bullseye on our backs."

"Grab me a rifle."

As I drag her out of the car on my side, I glance over at her. "What?"

"Are you fucking deaf? Grab me a fucking rifle."

"Sure, I'll just run over there and ask the geth to spare one for us," I mutter as the two of us drop heavily against the side of the ruined wreck as the geth come out of their stupor and realize the new threat. I can already hear their gunfire pinging off the other side of our cover, and if they're any smart they'll try and outflank us.

Calhoun's little stunt tore a nice, clean line through the advancing horde of geth, but there's still plenty to go around. At least it bought the C-Sec guys some time to really open up. But we can't hole up here for long. We're still pretty much a little island in the middle of a sea of hostiles. My right hand grips my force lance.

Ten shots.

Ten chances to save both our lives.

We're about twenty yards away from the barricaded entrance to the C-Sec office. Through the transparent walls and windows I can tell they're trying to un-barricade it to let us in, but without adequate cover, that's tantamount to suicide. They may as well invite the geth in their front door.

What we need is a distraction. And it better be a damn good one.

The first geth rounds the corner into my field of view. I lean slightly out of cover and take the shot, the little explosive slug firing from the coilgun built into the core of my force lance and slamming home into the geth's head. It blows up almost prettily, and the decapitated machine drops to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut.

Well, it works.

Before I can pat myself on the back for that, though, more geth advance on us. The reticule on my eyepiece flitters between targets like a hummingbird until I settle on a target and depress the firing stud. A little cough, a puff of smoke, and another round finds its mark.

I pull back hastily at their return fire, distinctly aware of my lack of shields or armor.

"So, what's the second part of your brilliant plan, Calhoun?" I ask her over the gunfire coming from the geth and the C-Sec office.

She looks over at me for a moment, her expression blank. Then, slowly, the edge of her lips quirks up the tiniest little bit. "I'd hoped to land a little closer to the door," she admits.

"Great." Two more rounds streak out from the little, almost lightsaber-ish tube in my hands. Man, maybe I should make that my next project. An honest-to-goodness lightsaber. Complete with projectile deflection capabilities. Yeah, that'd be handy.

I mutter a curse as my first shot misses, forcing me to fire again. The geth are making this relatively easy for me, because they don't seek cover of any kind. Not that there's much around to begin with. Cueing an overload into my omni-tool, I lean out of cover, flinching slightly as a trio of shots impact right next to my head, and let it fly.

It flies true, striking one of the geth troopers square in the chest, causing him to spaz out and drop to the ground in a twitching heap. My omni-tool clicks and whines as it recharges its capacitors. One down, about, oh, a million to go.

We can't stay here.

That much is becoming glaringly obvious over the next few seconds as each time I try to peek out to take a shot, suppressive fire hits my position. I'm in no big rush to be poked full of holes or lose some vital part of my anatomy, so I do what most sensible people with a healthy sense of self-preservation would do. I cower behind the slowly thinning metal chassis of the skycar's wreck.

"Well, what's your plan B?" I yell over at my partner. A geth crosses into my line of sight as it tries to flank around to the far right. It drops a second later, its head a smoldering ruin, but a second one takes its place, then a third.

"Hadn't thought that far ahead. How's that rifle of mine coming along?"

"I'm not exactly-" I hesitate a moment drop another insane killer robot, "I'm not exactly inclined to let them get close enough to be able to shoot us, much less take it's gun!"

"Shit."

"No kidding." Ducking down under a hail of return fire, I can't help but think that maybe shooting back at the geth and drawing their attention to us wasn't such a good idea. There's more and more geth coming up next to us and around us. It's like there's a river of killer robots flowing towards us and we're stuck behind a rock breaking the current. Sooner or later they're going to make it around us and then we'll be royally screwed. Well, more screwed than we already are.

And then I hear the absolute _last_ sound I wanted to hear. The rhythmic clang of a hopper, and it's close. It's real-

Holy flying fuck on a stick. The hopper clears the wreck, pushing off the ruined driver's compartment and drops down right in front of me. There's no time to think, and I just react in a half-panic, hitting the secondary stud on my force lance and extending it into a quarterstaff as it turns around.

"Sayonara, sucker," I mutter in my best action-hero impression as the muzzle of the staff comes to rest against its chestplate, and I pull the trigger. The high explosive round slams into its torso, breaching the armored plate and detonating inside, causing it to bulge out almost comically. It crashes to the ground, and I heave a sigh of relief as an indicator blinks red and a little catch cycles, indicating that the internal helical ten-round magazine is empty.

Well, shit. I've got my omni-tool's fabber set up to produce more rounds, but I doubt the geth are going to let me sit around and make more ammo, then load the rounds into the _one_ magazine I made. Hey, I _said_ it was a prototype, how the hell was I supposed to know it would've been a smart idea to carry around, oh, I dunno, maybe a dozen spare mags?

And the hopper didn't even have a gun. Like, what the hell? Melee hoppers? Seriously?

"Look out!" Calhoun's shout causes me to whirl back around as a clawed, motorized hand clamps down on my ankle and the demolished hopper struggles to get back up, sparks and all. Goddammit, what the hell does it take to for them to stay down?

No wait, don't answer that.

Spinning the staff around, I slam the butt end of it into the geth and slide the capacitor controls to max. The transformers whine for a brief second as the entire fifty-thousand volts arcs into the nearest conductive thing, which just so happens to be the hopper's internal circuitry. Take that, you stupid Energizer Bunny-wannabe. Finally, after a half-second of twitching, arcing, and the smell of burnt insulation and circuitry, the hopper stills and I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.

Well, good news? The taser works.

Bad news: I don't think I can do that too often with the batteries in this thing. In fact, judging from the fact that the power cell indicator's blinking an angry red at me, I don't think I can do it again, period. Okay, maybe this thing needs some work.

It was a bloody prototype!

Just as I look up from the freshly flash-fried geth on the ground, the massive form of a red geth juggernaut swings around the skycar's wreck. Great, just bloody fucking _great_. Combat reflexes I'll have to thank Miranda for override the sense of panic at having a giant, ten-foot armored machine pop up out of nowhere with a giant rifle in your face, and my staff whirls up, crashing into the side of the pulse rifle as I spin past the juggernaut, using its bulk to shield me from the other geth's fire.

The overload from my omni-tool drops its shields, but unfortunately, that doesn't leave me anywhere, because I don't have anything left that can hurt it. I duck under its arm as it swings around, trying to track me, and chance a glance at my omni-tool. It's not quite ready to charge another one of those yet.

As its head turns around and focuses on me, I freeze for a second as I realize there's no place to go. I can't go left, because that'll fully expose me to the rest of the geth. And if I swing right, I'll be right back in the juggernaut's gun sights. Not that this place is going to be any different in another second or so.

And I'm all out of tricks.

Its body slowly rotates, the pulse rifle coming up to its shoulder as it takes aim. I tuck and dive to the right, away from its gun, fully aware that all he has to do is pivot and trace a line of fire straight after me. But at this point I'll do anything that isn't just standing here and waiting to die. I can almost hear the rifle spin up its repeater, just like the one I used on Noveria, but the gunfire never comes.

With a sharp crack and a brief, tortured shriek, the juggernaut's head explodes in a spray of red painted shrapnel when a lance of burning white light spears right through its armored, unshielded head. Its half-ton frame collapses next to me with a dull thud, and then I'm looking over at the C-Sec office to see a salarian sniper sitting in one of the open windows, giving me a brief nod.

By the time I've got my breathing back under control - a harder feat than you might think if you're hyperventilating on one lung - Calhoun has already appropriated the fallen juggernaut's massive rifle and is hoisting the weapon around in an arc, trying to clear us some breathing space. And even with one arm hanging somewhat limply at her side, she's somehow maneuvering around the rifle with an ease that astounds me.

And, quite frankly, scares me a little bit. What the hell is it with me being surrounded by women that can scare the crap out of me?

At least she's buying me enough time to program the fabber on my omni-tool to produce more rounds. It'll take a while, but at some point I'm going to have ammo. But we still can't stay here. "Calhoun!" I yell over at her. She's not turning around, but I can tell she's listening by the set of her shoulders.

Slowly, she walks backwards, spraying rounds at the geth as the opportunity presents itself, until she's back in cover and crouching down next to me. "You hollered?"

"We've got to get into the office. I think they're done undoing their little barricade. If we can get inside, perhaps..."

"All right, you run, I'll cover you."

I shake my head at that. No way. As much as part of me is screaming to just take it and go with it, that part's also telling me that if I do that, there's a good chance I'll never see her again. "No. You go, I'll cover. You've got a bad arm, I've got a bad lung. You can get inside and cover me much faster than I can."

"Hell no," the blonde marine shakes her head emphatically, then gets in my face. "Look, mister, I-"

"Just shut the fuck up and give me the damn rifle," I grouse and make a grab for the weapon, pulling it from her one-armed grasp with some difficulty. "You know I'm right, Calhoun. Just get your ass inside and cover me."

She gives me the evil eye. "I don't leave men behind, so don't you make a liar out of me, got that, lunger?"

"Sure, sure, now get your ass over." Checking the rifle over, I vent the heatsinks and wait for it to cycle. "Ready? One, two," and then, doing my best to channel my inner Rambo, I stand up with the rifle slung low at my hip and switched into pulse repeater mode.

Just like on Noveria.

Just keep spraying and praying.

"Three." The last count is lost in the high-pitched whine of the weapon as I turn around in an arc, spraying a disc of molten metal at the oncoming geth. Calhoun heard me anyway, because the moment I'm pressing the trigger she's dashing for the C-Sec office entrance, crouched low and moving quickly. More quickly than I could have, at any rate.

That just leaves me, my appropriated geth rifle, and an army of geth that is hell-bent on killing me and does not need to take cover. Saturation and suppressive fire work a whole lot better when your enemy has _some_ sense of self-preservation, which the geth, for the most part, don't. Which makes trying to suppress them a _bitch_. And while the pulse rifle has an absolutely _insane_ rate of fire, it doesn't do a whole lot of damage.

Although, I should note, that _not a whole lot of damage_ is utterly relative here. Just because it doesn't do a lot of damage to armor plated geth, doesn't mean that if I get hit by one of its shots that it isn't going to hurt.

Or, like, _kill_ me.

Yeah, it'll probably kill my unarmored and unshielded ass.

You don't really know what terrifying is until you've stood in the face of a faceless, relentless, and unflinching army of machines that are trying to kill you while being forced to stand upright and mash down on the trigger of your gun, hoping and praying to whatever deity you believe in that you get lucky enough to not get hit in return.

The gun clicks and hisses as the temperature gauge redlines, but I don't dare look behind me to see if Calhoun made it. It's only when the safeties kick in and the rifle forcibly cycles its heatsinks that I drop back behind cover. And then there's nothing more I can do for Calhoun except hope and pray. For someone who's not religious I've been doing a lot of that lately. As in, the last five minutes lately.

The last glimpse I catch of the blonde marine is as she slips into the doorway. Heaving a sigh of relief, I wait until the pulse rifle has finished venting while the drone of gunfire around me somehow fades into the background. It's almost filtering itself out and not really bothering me anymore. All right, she's safely inside there.

Now all I've got to do is make it inside, myself.

Well, _that's _easier said than done. At least I'm armed now. With a whirr and a click, the heatsinks retract, and the rifle chirps its readiness. All right. Deep breath. Let it out slowly. Look around, assess the situation.

The geth are still coming up in droves, and after risking my neck - literally - to poke a glance over my cover, I come to the sobering realization that they'll probably overrun my position in a minute or two, even with all the fire streaming out from the C-Sec officers in their building. All right. It's just a twenty-yard dash.

I sucked at running in high school and college.

Well, Pat, you better run like you never have before, because if you don't, then it's the last run you'll ever make.

Calhoun's edging around the corner to look out at me. She's got a rifle now, some kind of turian make. A brief nod from her, and I know they're set to cover me inside. All right. Take a deep breath. It's all you now. Come on, I got this. I totally got this.

Slinging the pulse rifle over my shoulder - there's no way I'm running and gunning with a weapon that heavy in my condition - I silently count to three as Calhoun and two turian C-Sec officers swing out from behind the walls and door and open up full-auto.

Here goes nothing.

I push off the ground and take the steps as fast as I can. Ordinarily, twenty yards takes maybe three seconds. But that's three seconds out in the open, exposed to any geth who fancies taking a pot shot at me. And there's a lot of those. The moment I'm out of cover, bullets start whizzing by me and streaks of superheated air fill the space all around. One of them passes by so close to my left leg that I can feel the heat burning through my pants, causing me to stumble.

My lungs are burning by now, but I manage to catch myself before hitting the dirt face-first. Just five more yards. Impacts are starting to crater the walls around the door while Calhoun and her two companions maintain a steady stream of fire, standing fast in the face of an entire army of geth shooting back. Just two yards to go, two more steps. I throw myself forward into a tumble, right across the doorway and into the building. The turian on the left grabs hold of my arm and yanks me in fully, and an instant later Calhoun's fist slams down on the close button.

And for a moment I just lay there on the ground gasping for breath and trying to get my heart beat under control. Flopping onto my back, I look up at Calhoun as she extends a hand to help me up.

"Not bad for one lung," she smirks.

"Nice shooting for a one-armed lady," I shoot back in between heaving gasps for air that have my new lung constricting painfully. Man, that hurts something _fierce_. Guess that's why they tell you to let it heal for a week before doing anything strenuous.

Weapons fire hits the door, but fortunately, it's pretty solid, so it won't fail on us. But now _all_ of us are trapped in here, and the geth are still outside. And I still have to somehow make it to the Presidium. Unfortunately, we're all out of transports, and there's still an army of geth outside.

Wait.

Transport.

Geth.

I open up my omni-tool, not even bothering to move from the spot I'm sitting up in, forcing a turian to step over me, his mandibles distended in a frown. But I ignore him completely, because there's this vague idea that just popped into my head that demands to be written down and acted upon before I forget. Calhoun only shoots me a curious glance before picking up her rifle again and wandering off to look for a good firing position.

And all around me, she and the C-Sec officers continue right where they left off, laying down a carpet of gunfire at the encroaching robots outside. Gunfire pelts the building, the walls are rocked by the odd missile blast, and the men and women are shouting at each other about the geth coming ever closer.

None of that diverts my attention away from the little holographic display hovering above my omni-tool gauntlet as it loads the Cerberus hacking software and searches for nearby mainframes. It finds the C-Sec bureau, a nearby corporate mainframe, a couple hundred local computing clusters that belong to individual geth...

And a large central network, not too far from here. Amidst all the data chatter and random bits and bytes zipping through the air at this point, military chatter stands out like a sore thumb. And the geth dropship, serving as the local processing cluster for the troops it disembarked, well, it stands out like a seven-foot tall leprous asari. That's the downside to wireless networks. With enough resources, anyone can break in.

And that's exactly what I'm doing. My right hand flies across the controls, tapping this way and that, picking through decryption subroutines and algorithms as the software chips away at the geth firewalls. Contrary to popular belief, there's actually not much to hacking but picking the right software and then letting it go nuts. Most Mass Effect era firewalls are just plain too fast for humans to keep up with, even augmented ones.

And then, with a little chime that's almost lost in the din of combat all around, the cyberwarfare suit triumphantly announces its success, and a file and command interface pop up on the display, accompanied by scrolling lines of code of outgoing and inbound communications. It's all there - geth command orders, intercepted Alliance transmissions in the process of being decrypted, Citadel chatter, combat protocols.

And remote control piloting commands.

Hell yeah.

Okay, let's see if I can make sense of these controls. Fortunately, I don't actually have to understand the geth command interface in order to do things with it, because I have direct control of the engines and drive systems. And the autopilot. Yeah, the autopilot's important.

"Armature! Incoming armature! Get down!"

The resulting blast from the geth armored walker blasts a hole into the reinforced wall and suddenly opens up a breach in our defenses. Calhoun picks herself off the ground and is helping a salarian to get up. "Whatever the hell you're doing, do it soon, because we're about to be fucked worse than a two-credit streetwalker during liberty!"

Looking around me briefly, I duck back into the safety of a corner - though, to be honest, the kind of firepower we're dealing with on that armature makes any sort of cover available to us a moot point. My hand dashes across the holographic interface entering coordinates, plotting vectors, and accessing subsystems on the dropship. Finally, it's all ready. I hope.

Looking up at the marine, her short blonde hair streaked with dirt leaning around the breach in the wall and firing her rifle with almost reckless abandon, I hit the execute button, running the commands through the dropship's main processor. "Fall back!" I call out to her, waving them away from the walls. "Everyone, get the fuck away from the walls, _now_!"

The warning comes just as a second shot from the armature pierces through the steel and concrete structure to my left, the beam carving a perfectly round hole for an instant before the material superheats and expands in a blast of shrapnel and compressed air, sending two turians tumbling backwards. Only one of them gets back up. Calhoun and the others heard me, though, and are dashing backwards, away from the death trap that is the outer wall.

And seconds later, the high-pitched whine of engines drones out the weapons fire from the outside as the dropship lifts off and heads for our location. Chancing a look over my shoulder as I run further into the corridors of the C-Sec office, the almost insect-like ship is floating a little unsteadily, swinging this way and that as it tries to balance itself on its thrusters before finally righting itself and heading towards us in a straight line.

The sight of it closing towards us like a drunken devilfish is almost comical.

What's not comical, at least for the geth, is when the dropship opens up with its arsenal of air-to-surface suppression and support weaponry. Gauss turrets, autocannons, and particle beam weapons meant for anti-armor use open fire with a thunderous roar as the crude firing solution I programmed in blankets the entire area in front of the building with weapons fire, sweeping its turrets back and forth as impacts crater the walkway in a violent orgy of destruction.

The armature that fired on us cranes its bulbous head to aim at the dropship, but its large bulk is caught in the crossfire of an autocannon and a particle beam, both stitching tracks of gunfire across it until it collapses into a sparking, burning heap of slag. Not even the outer wall of the building is safe from the onslaught, as I didn't have enough time for a precise targeting solution. Impacts rock the building, tearing holes into the wall and blasting craters into the offices inside. The receptionist's desk is long gone, the armored door to the inner offices is blown out by a random hit, and the entire area becomes a killing zone.

After five long minutes, the dropship's weapons finally shut off to vent excess heat and rearm automatically, leaving it hovering just half a meter off the floor, competely inert and surrounded by the wrecks of its armed contingent.

The code has run its course, and it's now awaiting further orders. I poke my head around t see if the air's all clear when the shooting stops, and even though I know exactly what I programmed it to do, the sight still horrifies and relieves me at the same time. There is nothing, I mean _nothing _left standing outside. The area looks like an entire artillery unit used it for target practice, and there's remains of geth _everywhere_. If they were capable of bleeding, I'm sure the ground would be soaked in blood.

Calhoun finally comes out and lets out a low whistle at the carnage. "Not bad. Not bad at all."

"Yeah, because I was totally aiming for the post-apocalyptice, scorched earth look." My sarcastic comment comes easily, because there's nothing else that comes to mind. The destruction I've just caused almost effortlessly is stunning. And even though the geth are not actually alive, not like Legion, I can't help but feel sick to my stomach that it could have very easily been a couple hundred living people that got wiped out like this.

I ruthlessly shove that line of thinking down and slam an iron lid on it. There's time for that later. Right now, I've got to get to the Presidium. _Sovereign_ is getting closer, he's within the Citadel's arms already, his barriers glowing red as they absorb all the fire the defending ships are throwing at him. It's not even slowing him down. It won't be long until he reaches the Presidum towers, and then we'll all be in big shit.

"Where're you going?" Calhoun asks me as I pick up a rifle and step over the rubble towards the dropship. Slinging an arm around one of the pneumatic supports for the drop ramp, I hoist myself inside, the control interface on my omni-tool's display still glowing.

"Over there," I reply, nodding the way the massive Reaper is heading in the distance.

Calhoun tilts her head, her lips pressed together in a thin line. "You sure that's a good idea?"

Her words from a couple of days come back to me. _Heroes die_. It's a good thing I'm not a hero, then. I just shoot her a crooked grin and fire off a sloppy salute. "Nope. I'm counting on a dashing soldier woman to come save my butt."

"Well, it sure as hell won't be me."

"I know. You'll have your hands full."

Calhoun smirks up at me, hefting a rifle over her shoulder easily. "We'll be right behind you on the ground. As soon as we dig out the rest of the survivors from this clusterfuck."

"Try and get in contact with the fleet. And find Admiral Hackett. He was meeting in the Council Chambers, so maybe he's there or at the embassy. If not, they'll probably try to evacuate everyone to the docks. We'll have to get word out to Arcturus if we want to blow that thing out of the sky."

"Admiral, then comms. Got it." She shifts her rifle from her shoulder back into her arms. "You sure you can fly that thing?"

"That's what the autopilot is for."

Calhoun nods at me then spins around to face the surviving C-Sec officers that are now crawling out of the rubble, their expressions uncertain. "All right. Hey, you limp noodles, look alive in there! Haul your sorry carcasses out here, we've got a mission!"

It's clear none of them were prepared for an event like this, and they have no procedures, no idea how to deal with it, or where to even start. How do you prepare for something like this? Calhoun doesn't have a problem with it, though, and she takes a deep breath, her voice carrying loud and clear, with a deep, throaty quality to it that screams _drill sergeant_. "All right, now listen up, because I'm only going to say this once! Fear is a four-letter word, ladies. You want to go pee-pee in your big boy slacks, keep it to yourself. It's make your mama proud time!"

And the sound of her voice as she addresses her troops is the last thing I hear as I cling to the boarding ramp as the dropship lifts into the air and heads towards the Presidium towers, carrying me towards my rendezvous with an indoctrinated spectre.


	31. Chapter 31

**Chapter Thirty-One**

As the dropship approaches the spires and highrises of the Presidium and climbs into the air to drop me off at the upper levels, I take the few minutes of rest to sit down and relax a little. Well, as much as you can when you're riding on what is practically tantamount to a suicide mission. Then again, Shepard's good at those, isn't she? My omni-tool's fabber has finally finished baking the spare rounds for my force lance, and I almost absent-mindedly insert them one at a time into the helical magazine that pops into the lance.

With the magazine loaded, it slips back easily into its slot, and with a whirr it chambers the fresh round. My hands continue without looking, snapping more effectors into the two spare magazines that came out of the fabber. Finally, the dropship slows down, and with a groan I stretch my back and legs and get up from my place next to the ramp. The force lance settles into its holster on my belt, along with the spare mags, and the rifle is cocked, locked, and double-checked.

And then the ramp lowers, depositing me on one of the landing platforms.

All righty, all I have to do now is find Saren and somehow delay him long enough for Shepard to get there. I chuckle as the thought hits me of just how ludicrous that sounds, because, well, he's bloody _Saren Arterius_, only the most decorated spectre in decades, and I'm, well, _me_. Maybe going up here without reinforcements wasn't such a good idea, but the people out there in the Citadel wards need _help_. The geth are cutting down civilians and soldiers alike without distinction, and it's got to stop.

A sliver of doubt worms its way into my mind as I step off the ramp. Maybe I should've contacted Miranda. Maybe I should've asked Calhoun to come along. Maybe I shouldn't be going _at all_, because up till now I've done an spectacularly _splendid_ job at not fucking things up. But I'm here now, and the cold, hard logic is that Saren is, too, and if no one stops him then this entire galaxy is doomed when he opens the front door for the Reapers. If someone's got to stop him, or be a bump in his road, it might as well be me. With my corpse, if need be.

All right, that's a little macabre, even for _my _tastes. Good thoughts, positive thoughts. No thinking about dying. Ix-nay on the i-day. Shepard can't be far behind, not if she was on Ilos when Joker said she was. There's a little cold, frigid touch hovering just on the edge of my mind the moment I step off the dropship, and a shiver runs down my spine. Looking up involuntarily, I'm greeted by the massive form of _Sovereign_, floating towards me almost serenely, pointedly ignoring everything the defenders are throwing at him.

Goddamn fucking Reaper is trying to fuck with my head again.

Hefting the rifle, I set off in the general direction of the highest point I can find, somewhere on the rooftop of the Council chambers. There are very few geth here. The fact that I was flying in one of their dropships already let me pass through most of their lines without any problems, and this far up, it's probably only Saren and a few scattered geth. But there's no point in getting careless now. The path to the spire is clear and without any geth, and I easily make it inside. I distinctly remember having to fight my way through in the game, so maybe that's good news, and Saren hasn't made it there yet.

Although it makes me wonder how he'll get here if he's not coming from Ilos. I don't _think_ he was on Ilos, the timeline just doesn't work out, not with all that's changed. Damn, I should've asked Joker about it, because if I recall correctly, then the mass relay on Ilos will deposit whoever goes through somewhere close by. If he's not already here, then he's got to be coming through soon. I entertain the thought of waiting for him and ambushing him for a moment.

But that's too risky.

_Sovereign _is inching into position, though, which means it can't be long. Time's running short, and I hurry to the elevators. I'm half expecting Council security or C-Sec to stop me and tell me to go away, but there's no one there, at least not on the lower floors. It's when I'm standing in front of the elevator, waiting for it to arrive, that things start going wrong.

With a horrific crash and shriek of tortured metal, one of the nearby towers collapses into itself as a geth destroyer, mortally wounded by defensive fire, rams into it. The ship careens and twists towards the ground, but it's the falling highrise that does the real damage as it topples over sideways, its base and supports gone, falling right towards Citadel Tower.

Right towards me.

There's no time to run away, no time to do anything smart like finding a desk to crawl under to protect my head, no time at all to do anything except stare with a morbid mix of fascination and horror as the damn thing comes rushing towards me through a window. The top of the falling highrise makes contact with the middle levels of Citadel Tower with an almost indescribable cacophony of crushing glass, crumbling concrete, and bending and twisting metal, but fortunately, the effects aren't really felt this far down, this close to the ground.

And the the rest of the building slams right home, a solid wall of steel and concrete rushing at me through the window as the rest of the building makes contact.

T

The rumbling has finally stopped, and I think the Divine is finally not trying to bring the heavens down on my head anymore. Coughing up dust and blinking open my eyes, I take a moment to survey the miracle that is my survival. The Citadel Tower surprisingly didn't take a whole lot of damage on the lower floors.

At least, when considering that it just got head-butted by another skyscraper almost as tall as itself. There's debris and broken concrete and glass all over the place, but the walls are intact, if a little crooked and cracked, and there's none of the ominous creaking that would herald an immediate structural failure. Quite amazing, considering the fact that not ten meters over I can see daylight through the outer wall, and a part of the other building spearing right into the tower.

The fact that I'm even alive, much less able to get up and walk away from something like this completely unharmed except for the shock of it all probably shaving ten years off my life expectancy is nothing short of miraculous. I mean, how often do you just walk away from being in a building hit by _another building_? Perhaps there was some divine intervention at play here, perhaps it was Q. Or perhaps I'm finally cashing in on all that good karma and luck that life owes me. Whatever the reason, I pick myself off the ground and search around for the rifle that was just in my hands a couple of minutes ago.

I find it not too far away, where it slid away from my grasp but was retained by the sling I had on it and over my shoulder. Unfortunately, the rifle itself is laying crushed by a rather large piece of the ceiling that didn't use to be there, and I shudder to think of the damage that would have caused had it landed just a few feet to the left and on top of me. Yeah, divine intervention, definitely. With trembling fingers I undo the quick-detach sling point and leave the now-useless weapon where it is.

Okay, deep, steadying breaths. That was pretty damn terrifying, but there's still work to be done, and I can't stop here. Not now.

Sadly for me, geth don't believe in sidearms, so all I'm left with, once again, is my force lance and thirty shots. Goddammit, I really need to get back into the habit of packing everything and the kitchen sink...just in case. I used to do that, you know. But life with Miranda and on the _Normandy_ have kind of spoiled me to having everything right at my fingertips. Taking a minute or so to get my hyperventilation and crazy heartbeat under control, I look around me. The corridor to the left, where I came from, it's completely smashed beyond recognition. It's partially blocked, and collapsed, with the walls leaning at utterly awkward angles from the impact.

The corridor further down to the right is almost untouched on the inside, although I'm pretty sure it took quite a beating. Unfortunately for me, that means the elevators are now officially out of order. There's no way I'm using that to get up the...however many levels it is to the top. And the one on the far side is similarly out of order. How do I know? I pressed the call button, thinking that perhaps the far side of the building meant the elevator was a little more shielded from the damage. Judging by the sounds coming from within the shaft, I'd say that'd be a resounding _no_. Mass effect field driven elevators are supposedly noiseless. _This_ one yowls like a cat being kneaded by tank treads, followed by something that sounded suspiciously like it plummeted to the bottom of the shaft and was only being stopped by the emergency mechanical brakes.

I guess the stairs it is.

The new lung is just going to _love_ that.

On the plus side, the geth can't use the elevator, either. Though I don't really think that'll slow them down much. Dammit, why couldn't I have been badass enough to pilot the dropship right over the roof of the Citadel Tower and jump off there?

Oh, right, because I'm _not_ that badass, and I'm not nearly a good enough pilot to fly the thing that close without either running into anything, or hovering it so far away that I'd break something in the fall. The stairwell on this side of the building doesn't look too trustworthy, though, and after a quick look up, I decide that maybe it'd be a better idea to find a more...stable way up. Like, one that won't fall apart as soon as I put my weight on it.

There's another stairwell on the far side of the building, and that suits me just fine. As far away from the impact damage as possible. Now all I've got to do is climb up, oh, twenty, thirty? Maybe forty flights of stairs. Oh yeah, this is gonna be fun.

Not.

At least I don't have to shoot my way up. For some ungodly reason - not that I'm complaining, mind you, not at all - there's no geth around, and even the buzz of the aerial dogfights and the ground war waging not too far away has dulled to almost background noise about ten or so levels up. About fifteen flights up I can't really take it anymore and take a moment to lean heavily against the wall and take deep, huffing breaths.

Whoever said saving the world was glamorous business had _no_ idea what they were talking about. Seriously, this is, like, going to be my workout for the next four months or so. Combined. The flights continue to blur into each other. There's no windows here, so I can't even see how the battle outside is going. For all I know the defense fleets have been annihilated, _Sovereign_ is docked, and about to open up the relay.

Okay, don't think that. Good thoughts, positive thoughts.

But that chill on my back is getting stronger, and my shortness of breath suddenly isn't only being caused by the missing lung and nervousness, anymore. It hits me in the chest almost like a physical blow, and I just _know_ that I'm getting closer.

Finally, coughing and gasping for breath, I make it to the top, just in time to see a turian cruiser go up in flames almost right above me as _Sovereign_'s beam weapon lashes out, carving an angry red swath right through the ship and leaving both halves ejecting escape pods as they drift towards the wards. He's inside the Citadel arms already, which means Saren will close them soon. The damn central console can't be far from here now, because I distinctly remember having to go up the same damn stairs in the game, fighting geth all the while.

Although, I don't think Shepard had to climb quite as many stairs.

I can't help but chuckle at the thought of how ridiculous an image this must be right now. Here I am, poised to make my grand entrace to save the galaxy - or, at least, slow Saren down so _Shepard_ can save the galaxy, and I'm bracing myself hunched over against my knees and am huffing and puffing like I just ran a twenty-mile marathon. Then again, a small part of me is wondering what the hell I'm even thinking. I'm about to go off and potentially take on a spectre all by my lonesome. I'm guessing my life expectancy in that fight can probably be measured in milliseconds, especially since he's being controlled by old _Sovvy_. Not to mention the fact that he can always do that _assuming control_ thing when things go south. If things go south, which is rather unlikely, unless Shepard gets here soon.

Yeah, I must be clinically insane.

Climbing across the roof I look around to get my bearings. It's not like you had much choice where to go in the game, but real life...well, it's different. No pre-scripted paths and conveniently locked doors you can't interact with, but I'm thinking I took a wrong turn somewhere, because this isn't the Council chambers. In fact, this is probably the roof of the Council chambers, if anything. My comm is still crackling with muted chatter from the ships above, which is good, I suppose, because it means there's someone still alive and shooting. Not that it's going to do them much good.

Although, from the sounds of it, they're not going to be there much longer. Shit.

"This is Council Security, we're pinned down, request immediate assistance!" a gravelly voice comes over the line on all channels. "Attempting to evacuate the Council to the dreadnought _Destiny Ascension_, we're pinned down by hostile forces at the Presidium Docks, Zakera Ward. Repeat, we need support, _now_!"

There is a roar of displaced air and a brilliant flash in the distance that makes me look over to where the space battle is raging. _Sovereign_ is cutting his way through the defenders on his way to the Presidium, passing by the docking ring and has just fired at the asari dreadnought parked there, waiting to evacuate the council.

For a moment the chatter is quiet, before a female voice replies. "This is _Destiny Ascension_, barriers down to forty-five percent. Taking heavy fire from enemy flagship, need immediate support."

"Destroyer _Fortitude_, we're inbound. ETA thirty seconds."

"They're powering their main weapon-"

"Full power to engines, I want this ship between the enemy and the _Destiny Ascension_!"

Looking up, I can barely make out where the firefight is taking place between the asari dreadnought and _Sovereign_. The dreadnought is taking fire along its flank as the giant Reaper closes, and a host of smaller geth ships are swarming around it, wearing down its defenses. Ordinarily, the _Destiny Ascension_ could probably take out all of the geth shits attacking it right now without much trouble, hell, considering who built it, the damn thing might even normally give _Sovereign _trouble.

But the ship's docked, its barriers extended around the docking port and berth, waiting for its precious cargo to arrive. With its shields spread out as they are to prevent damage to the docking ring and no maneuverability, she can't bring the majority of her weapons to bear. And at zero relative speed, it's like shooting fish in a barrel. The Reaper opens his arms and his eye begins to glow as the particle beam preps to fire. I can't help but suppress a wince, because that thing will probably cut the dreadnought in half once its barriers fail, and I don't think the _Destiny Ascension_ can take another one of those hits.

The beam lances forward, washing across the asari ship's barriers, turning them an angry red as they try to dissipate the energy _Sovereign_ is so effortlessly throwing at them. For a moment it looks like they'll hold, but then the beam weapon slices through, punching a hole into the _Destiny Ascension_'s portside wing and sweeping inwards.

"We're under heavy fire, hull breaches on all decks, reactors going into emergency shutdown-" a panicked asari calls out over the comm, her terrified voice cutting through the other chatter on the radio as easily as _Sovereign_ is cutting through the dreadnought's hull.

I can't help but watch in morbid fascination as the pride of the asari fleet, a ship that even survived the cataclysmic battle of Earth in Mass Effect 3, is in the process of being gutted like a fish before the Council even ever realizes the Reaper threat. This wasn't supposed to happen, not this way, not now. There's no telling what'll happen if we lose that ship and all its crew. There's got to be at least a couple of thousand crew aboard her, and they're all going to die because of...

Me.

Two seconds after the frantic transmission from the asari flagship cuts off, a turian destroyer, its engines burning a brilliant white, darts in between the two much larger ships. Its barriers have no hope of holding back the brunt of _Sovereign_'s attack and it only takes them a half second to fail. By the time the Reaper's attack cuts off, the once pristine destroyer is adrift in space, hulled and almost cut in two.

But the _Destiny Ascension _ is still in one piece.

Goddamn crazy turians.

There's no time to mourn, no time to admire the courage of the doomed crew as they throw themselves into the line of fire to protect the Council. _Sovereign_ continues unperturbed, almost nonchalant of the fact that he failed to kill his intended target, ignoring the vicious return fire as the _Destiny Ascension_'s gunner try to take revenge their fallen comrades. It just drives home the fact that they are hopelessly outmatched.

And he's just a single Reaper.

A keeper skitters past me, its appendages waving about wildly as it processes conflicting orders. I'm guessing _Sovereign _is trying to undo the protheans' sabotage. All right, then, follow the keepers. If anyone aboard this station knows where there would be a hidden command console that'll let you open and close the arms and do whatever other cloaky shit you built it to do, they'll be it. I pull up a map of the Citadel Tower on my omni-tool to check my location. Yeah, I overshot a little. I'm right on top of the Council chambers. The problem is that the Council chambers are only accessible via elevator for security reasons. Now how the hell do I get down there?

The almost man-sized spider-like creature continues on its path, studiously ignoring both the battle raging above us and my presence as it moves across the roof, much quicker than you'd think it could. It finally stops in front of a well in the ground. It's just like a little dip on top of the Citadel Tower's roof, like a giant sphere dipped down on it and made this huge dent.

It kind of makes you wonder how the hell people miss something like this, especially the asari, who've had control of the station for...centuries? Millennia? I mean, it's a bloody giant hole in the ground, for fuck's sake.

For a second there, I think that maybe following the keeper was a mistake, because nothing happens. The well looks just like an architectural feature. It seems confused, too, because the keeper just stands there, tilting its head this way and that, its appendages twitching nervously, as if looking for something to fix that should be here but isn't.

And according to the map, I'm right on top of the Council chambers. One floor down should be where you get to talk to them airheaded politicians, and one floor below _that_ is where Saren falls through to. I'm sure the Citadel has plenty of places high up that look like this - a wide open space with a balcony-type platform overlooking the lower wards and a great view of the space and sky and other wards overhead, so what makes this place different? Why's the keeper stopping here? It's not like there's anything around that requires maintenance. Dammit, why can't they ever make anything easy?

Since the keeper is ignoring me, I take a minute to walk around. It's clear we're on a rooftop, but at the same time there's still this..._inside_ feeling. Probably because even though there's plants and open space all around me, I can tell just by looking up that we're in a confined space. There's nothing here.

"The relays are down, the relays are down, repeat, this is the Alliance frigate _Stormbringer_, we can't bring in reinforcements. Something is interfering with the relay operation."

"Forget reinforcements, _Stormbringer_, this is lost, we need to evacuate!"

"Cut the chatter, frigates _El-Alamein _and _Kasserine Pass_, get back in formation _now_!"

"Negative, negative, we're being cut to ribbons here!"

"We can't leave a half million people to die in this, you will return your ship to combat formation, Captain!"

"The captain's dead, sir, this is Lieutenant Wilkes, half our crew is gone and we're taking heavy fire we're-"

The transmission cuts off with a pained outcry, and it's not hard to imagine the ship going down under a torrent of fire from the geth and _Sovereign_.

Shit, I totally forgot about that. _That_'s why Shepard had to be aboard the Citadel for Joker to bring in the fleet, goddammit. I guess asking the keeper how to open up the mass relays is completely out of the question?

That also means Saren's already at the console.

Double fuck.

"I don't suppose you'd tell me how to get...wherever the hell it is that Saren is at right now?" I ask the keeper. It stays silent, just as I figured. "Useless piece of junk," I mutter angrily.

Still, curiousity gets the better of me. I wonder what this dip in the ground is for, because it looks almost perfectly spherical. I mean, sure, it could be a random architectural feature, but in general, people don't design architectural features where one has to literally trip over it to find it. The keeper is still twitching, almost spasmodically now. Huh. Wonder if the fella is all right?

And then I take a step into the circle.

Holy _shit_.

The world around me is washed away as a giant hologram springs to life around me, forming a perfect sphere that fits right into the dent in the ground, extending all the way outwards until it's reached maybe ten meters in diameter. It's almost opaque, and the sound from the outside is suddenly muted. Motes of light shimmer into being, coalescing and swirling around me in a dizzying pattern that I can't even hope to understand.

But the little keeper suddenly stops jerking around and waddles inside, his arms reaching out to touch this string and that sphere and the ball of light over there, tweaking, adjusting, and moving them around.

That...can't be good, right?

And then the Citadel arms begin to close.

Oh shit, shit, shit.

In a panic, I reach out, randomly touching one of the strings of light floating past me. It stops and hovers in front of me, opening up into an entire page-wide lane of scrolling text and code. It flickers through a series of different print types for a moment before settling on standard English. It's an interface.

All right, weapons, shields, anything? Looking through the file before me, it's some random discourse of an ancient asari philosopher. Stupid cluttered databases. Picking another file, I open it, and then another. I'm reaching for ten, fifteen files at a time, skimming them all, looking for anything that looks like an active command interface.

No dice. This is an archival access point, at best.

"I don't suppose _take me to your leader_ would work here?" I ask the keeper again, since it doesn't seem to be spazzing out anymore. Although it's really more of a rhetorical question than anything else.

In response, its head swivels to me and tilts to the right. One of its arms is still flicking bits and bytes of errant data into their proper places, almost reminiscent of an AI's mainframe in _Andromeda_, while its other arm whips out and tugs a ball of holographic light my way. Taking it from the proffering claw...thingy, I open it up.

And while I have no idea what most of it means, at least I'm moving in the right direction. This is a direct line to the station's main systems. Life support, defenses...relay operation.

Bingo.

Opening up the controls, there's just _so much_ that doesn't make sense to me. I'm an engineer, not a bloody programmer. It's like...hell, like going from a C64 to a freaking Windows 8 machine. You look around for things that look familiar or that vaguely make sense, push the button, and hope for the best. Okay, first of all...

Tapping the interface reveals a wireframe schematic of the Citadel and the local space surrounding it. Four different mass relays are around it, connected to the one by the Citadel via thin red lines. As I'm watching, a fifth connection is turning from green to red as a little gauge on the Citadel's image itself begins to turn from red to green. I'm guessing that's Saren trying to shut down the relays. All right, time to see if I can do some damage.

I managed to bluescreen a Mac Tiger OSX once. This can't be that much harder, right?

Yeah, right...about that...as I tap my way through the menus, there's nothing that really jumps out at the that screams _mass relays on_ or _off_, or something to that effect. All right, time to see if Cerberus is as good as they claim to be. A swipe of my omni-tool brings up the hacking and command interface, and it doesn't take long at all for it to link with the Citadel systems.

Lucky for me the fact that I'm standing on...whatever the hell this is allows me to circumvent most of the security systems, and the hacking software goes to work as it tries to translate the Reaper-written software controlling this giant space mouse trap into something us measly humans can comprehend. The sudden intrusion into its software architecture disturbs the keeper, and it turns towards me.

Uh-oh.

It skitters around me, raising its clawed arms and frantically tries to access software hardpoints, probably trying to undo the hack. Then suddenly, a hologram flickers to life in front of me, coalescing into the figure of a seven foot tall alien with a bald, grey-ish blue head and some _really_ gross shit growing out of his chest. Think one of those cute little grey Asgard had a baby with the Kraken and then zombified it. A leprous, zombie baby. And with, like, classically evil red cyborg eyes, clawed hands, and all that jizz. And he's standing on four tentacles. With another four waving around in the air around him.

Goddammit, it's Doc-freakin'-Ock in _space_. Whoever said that _in space_ made everything better deserves to be _shot_. Repeatedly.

Its red cyborg eye focuses on me and I'm almost expecting it to tell me _resistance is futile_. It doesn't, though, and just eyes me for a bit while the battle upstairs rages on. Holy freakin' Jesus Christ on a pogostick, what the _hell _is that? I mean, obviously, it's, well, a graphical representation of _something_, probably something whose extinction served as a public service to the rest of the galaxy whose eyes will no longer bleed upon seeing one of these...whatever the hell it is.

Truth be told, I should probably be terrified at its appearance, and if I'm honest with myself, a part of me _is_. But the sodding thing is just so comically overdone and _ugly_ that there's no way you can't _not _laugh at it. You're almost violently _compelled_ to laugh at it because it's so hideous. Divine help me, I hope that's not the Citadel's AI, because if it is...

Yeah.

And I really can't stop giggling. The near hysterical this-is-beyond-fucked-up giggles.

Finally, it speaks. Oh Em Gee, the sodding thing actually fucking _speaks_. And it's in _English_. "Aberration detected," it intones in a metallic monotone that's reminiscent of the old Cylon voicework from the original Battlestar Galactica, not that new GINO crap.

But that voice, that inflection - or rather, lack thereof - and the wording mean it can only be one...person? Individual? Thing? Yeah, thing. Let's go with that.

"Hello, _Sovvy_," I greet him almost snarkily. There's nothing I can do to him right now, really, and all he has to do is point a gun emplacement right here and open up and I'll be a cloud of vapor floating around. "You always this ugly, or did you break out the party suit just for me?"

"You will cease your interference. Anomalous activity will not be tolerated. The cycle will continue. Your insolence will no longer be tolerated."

On the other hand, if he shoots at me, he's likely going to take out Saren and the control console in the same shot, so there. "I don't suppose you're here to surrender? Because I'm in a mood to take it."

"Diverting power to central darkspace relay. You cannot stop us. The cleansing will continue." _Sovereign_ - or whatever representation he chose for himself, anyway - stares at me as my omni-tool beeps in protest as he quickly overrides anything the hacking software did. Should've figured. Cerberus might be good, but you can't out-hack a giant flying space computer.

"You sure we can't talk about this? I mean, come on, doing the whole taking-over-the-galaxy and then leaving it in ruins schtick has got to get old after a million years or two. Right?" Although trying to talk down a Reaper is probably not the best approach for this, but frankly, I'm out of ideas. I can't get into the Citadel mainframe, _Sovereign_ is going to undo any changes I make, and at this point, I'm not even sure that getting to the console Saren is at will do me any good.

The hologram merely continues to stand there, surrounded by motes of floating light as he prepares to spring the ultimate trap. _Sovereign_'s massive ship form begins to slide into view overhead, and for a moment, I have this silly notion of trying to shoot him down with a sidearm. Not that that's going to work very well. No, not well at all. "These Reapers _really_ need to find themselves a new hobby. Maybe Monopoly, or something. Or Angry Birds," I mutter to myself as I back out of the holo sphere.

"Initializing darkspace relay." The Reaper's hologram flickers for a moment as the Citadel arms close fully around us and the Presidium ring flares up with electricity.

_Sovereign_ is just plain ignoring my presence now. He's won, and he knows it. There's nothing we can do to stop him from opening the relay now, and with the arms closing, the fleet can't shoot at him. Not unless I suddenly grow the ability to jam all wireless transmissions in the immediate area, anyway. There's got to be a reason _Sovereign_ wants Saren on the station, there's got to be something he can't do from here.

I mean, why even bother with indoctrinating a spectre and sending him through the Conduit otherwise? If _Sovereign _could always just hack the Citadel's systems from this far away, why bother with it at all? And if Saren opens the relay from here, why does _Sovereign_ need to be here? The geth could have easily provided the same distraction, if a distraction was even necessary.

Something doesn't add up here.

From the corner of my eye, I can see the keeper starting to twitch again. It's almost like he's getting conflicting orders from different sources, but with _Sovereign_ in control, there shouldn't _be_ any other orders for him. No, there's more going on here. Why would the Reaper need Saren aboard the Citadel before the assault, before he can open up the relay?

There's no way he can know about the extent of the prothean sabotage; it doesn't make any sense. If the Reapers knew, they would've fixed it before setting up the galaxy for the next cycle. Hell, there's no way the Reapers should even _know_ about the sabotage, otherwise they would've done something about it.

So why...

And then it hits me.

The Reapers aren't ready yet. I know that much. _Sovereign_ is the vanguard, but they aren't ready to launch a full frontal assault. It'll probably take them till after the Collectors show up in order to wake up or whatever it is they do and muster enough strength to lay siege to the galaxy. Because technologically advanced or not, a campaign on that scale, even a blitzkrieg, requires a substantial number of forces.

Especially if you're hell-bent on wiping out every living thing in the galaxy. You need the numbers to make sure nothing slips through the cracks. But for some reason, _Sovereign_ has decided that _now_ is the time to strike at us. That we need to be destroyed at this particular point in time. I mean, come on, the Reapers have this goddamn spiel down pat, they know exactly at what point in galactic development they need to step in. Maybe I was right in thinking it's about the rate of development, or maybe it's something else.

For some reason, something threw their schedule out of whack. Something made it necessary for them to go _now_, instead of later. He needs Saren for something. Something he can't do himself. Somehow, he _can't_ power up the relay by himself from up there despite having full access to the station's mainframe. There's got to be something, some hardware block, some sabotage that he can't fix by hacking into it. The protheans must have known that any kind of software sabotage would be pointless.

He's buying _time_. He's rousing a geth insurrection to keep the galaxy in turmoil and prevent them from uniting against the Reapers when they do come. He's goddamn playing us off against each other. The Council, Cerberus, humans against turians, salarians against krogan. Saren can open the relay right now, but that doesn't do the Reapers any good, because he's the only one who's awake right now. So either this is a giant diversion, or...

Or _Sovereign_ is going to use the open relay to wake the other Reapers up. Send a signal, or something, like some kind of cosmic alarm clock.

That damn keeper is twitching again. What the hell is up with that guy? You'd think he'd be ecstatic that the Reapers are coming to get him, or something.

And there's still this nagging feeling that something isn't quite _right_ here, that it's not the way it's supposed to be. The comm's gone quiet, and there's absolutely _nothing_ going on around me. All the sound's gone, like it was the moment I stepped into this weird holo-bubble, and my head's been pounding since.

Almost like...

Almost like that one time when he got into my head in Miranda's apartment.

Lining up a shot with my force lance, I send a round ripping straight through _Sovereign_'s hologram. "Your attempts at resistance are futile. The cycle will continue. Your interference will be eliminated," he says evenly.

Okay, you sodding piece of floating garbage. "Stop messing with my head," I snarl at him, but he just continues to stand there looking all...well, not _pretty_, certainly not. But smug for sure. There's got to be a goddamn way out of this.

This all started when I headed up the stairs and followed the keeper to this well in the roof. A little smirk tugs at the corner of my mouth as a suspicion builds. Lining up the lance again for another shot, I take a step back from _Sovereign_'s hologram. The capacitors charge up with a low whine.

"Your continued resistance is pointless."

"Yada yada yada, shut up already. It's getting old, just like you. Don't tell me Reapers can get senile?" I quip as I press the firing stud, sending another round firing out of the weapon.

And right into the keeper's head.

It explodes in a shower of gore and metal, and suddenly reality washes away, and I find myself alone in a dark chamber with the same spherical impression in the ground. Stumbling a bit from the disorientation, I brace myself against the wall and let out a long, heavy breath. My head suddenly hurts again, and I know it's from _Sovereign_ trying to get in there. Or maybe he's already in there and causing all sorts of havoc. Damned if I know.

There's two doors; one of which is locked. The other...is not. I step out into a large, cavernous room, and it takes me a moment to recognize it as the Council chambers. I've never seen it from this angle before, having come out of a little hidden door below the platform the Council sits on. I'm not even going to question how I got here. Keepers, or I sleepwalked. Or something. On the far left, there's the balcony overlooking the Presidium, and standing in front of the podium, his head tilted back to look up into space, is a single person.

A turian.

"I've been expecting you." the hollow, gravelly voice comes from the person still facing away from me as he obvserves the battle raging in the skies, almost reminiscent of the same scene that would play out in this exact spot a couple of years later between Shepard and that stupid star child.

Extending my force lance to its full length and bringing it up to aim at his back, I lock onto the turian's form. "Step away from the console," I order quietly, mostly to keep my voice from shaking. Because this is it. It really is it, just me and a possessed Saren. I had no idea how terrifying the prospect of that could be until now.

Surprisingly, he obliges, taking one step back from the interface and turning around to face me. Saren Arterius looks nothing like the holo of him in the Council records anymore. Gone is the turian spectre who was legend, replaced by this...mangled construct of flesh and metal, with implants pockmarking his body and face. His formerly blueish-grey skin is now a sickly ashen white and his once pristine turian armor laced with Reaper hardware that looks grown more than grafted. "_Sovereign_ has warned me of you," he replies evenly, not a trace of emotion in his face or tone.

And that alone is scaring me more than I like to admit. I know that in the game, Shepard managed to talk him down, at least if you made the skill check and decided to go paragon. But I've got not even a sliver of hope of doing that, and I can tell that _Sovereign_ is in full control.

Well, this is gonna be a doozy.


	32. Chapter 32

**Chapter Thirty-Two**

"Really?" I ask him as evenly as I can manage. "I hope he didn't say too many terrible things about me. I'm really not that bad a guy, you know."

Saren tilts his head in a curiously human fashion. "Merely that you were an aberration, a stroke of chance that they had not considered. I must admit, I dismissed you at first. A mere human could not be such a threat to beings as supreme as them. And yet..."

"Heh. I'm nothing, _Shepard_'s the one you should be worried about," I chuckle.

"Perhaps," Saren acknowledges easily. "But she is not here right now. It is a shame. They said she was destined for great things. I would have liked to have crushed her spirit, myself."

"Like you'd stand a chance against her?" I can't help the chuckle that comes out. Seriously? Him? Against _I-killed-a-thresher-maw-with-nothing-but-a-rifle_ Shepard? It's not even going to be a contest.

The turian ex-spectre at least has the good grace to not expound on his own virtues. I'm sure he was great in his hey-day. But combat at that level? It comes down to individualism, quick thinking, and a keen mind, all of which Shepard has in spades, and all of which _Sovereign_ leeched out of him. Saren shrugs as best as his alien physique will let him. "You cannot stop us in our task. It would be best to just surrender to the Reapers."

"Riiiight," I drawl out, "because they _totally_ have our best interests at heart. Look, can't you see what's going on? I mean, I know they've filled your head with all that saving the galaxy from itself shit, but come _on_. You really think living on as a husk, as a mindless, soulless body is worth it? You turians were always crazy, but that's bad, even for you."

So I'm not as diplomatic as Paragon Shepard. Sue me.

"Perhaps it isn't what I had envisioned, but there is no choice now. I have gone too far to turn back. The cleansing must continue. For a better future for us all, the galaxy must be culled."

Running a hand through my hair in frustration, I barely suppress the urge to bang my head against my deployed force lance. Because that would hurt. "Dude, are you even listening to yourself? _Cleansing_ this, and annihilation _that_, I mean, Divine I know the Reapers play dirty, but if there's any shred of sanity left in you, sodding hell, _listen_ to yourself."

There's a slight jerking of the ground before he can answer, and we both look up. _Sovereign_'s dark form is still hovering above us, but the arms - the arms are no longer moving. I just _know _that was Shepard's doing.

And then all the lights go off, and emergency power struggles on, bathing the chamber in a dim red glow. Bloody hell, just _what_ is it with red emergency lights? Turning to Saren, I keep my lance aimed at him. "Stay away from the console," I warn, my finger on the trigger. There's no way I'm letting him back on that thing. All I've got to do is keep him talking. Now all we've got to do is get the relays back online, and then...

_"Assuming direct control_."

Oh, _fuck_.

Without even waiting for him to start doing that floating and glowing thing I open up, pulling the trigger as rapidly as it'll chamber a new round until the last effector leaves the magazine while making a mad dash for cover. The ten smartbullets slam into Saren's reaperfied body, staggering him as they impact his armor. One round breaches, blowing a fist-sized hole into the carapace plate, but if he notices the gaping wound, he's not showing it.

I fumble with the reload, wasting precious seconds trying to force the magazine in backwards. I really need to do something about that. Later. Much, much later, when I don't have a Reaper-possessed freaking _spectre_ trying to kick my ass. Goddammit, I should've learned by now not to open my bloody mouth and piss people off. There isn't much else I can do but duck behind a podium as one of his beams lashes out, carving a nice, glowing trench about three inches wide in the ground next to me. Suddenly, my cover is only half as wide as it was before.

And by the way? A podium, no matter what it's made of is _not_ cover against a Reaper's beam cannon-thingy. At all.

Well, that just made things a lot more complicated. Why can't things ever be easy?

A second near miss cleaves what's left of my not-cover into pieces. Yeah, definitely time to move. Just stay moving, then. Focus on not getting hit. I don't have to beat him, just buy Shepard some time to do _something_ about the relays. In the game she just did something on her omni-tool and the relays went pop, back to open. Let's hope that it's just as easy in real life, because if she doesn't do things quickly, then we're all toast. _Reaper_ toast, with jam and peanut butter. Yuck.

Oh, yeah, and then she's got to come rescue my ass. Come on, Shepard.

Okay. Deep breath. This isn't anything I haven't done before. Run _away_ from the gunfire. Right. There's a bit of a back area, where I think either the press or spectators from the public sit. It's built real nice, arches, benches and all that. It's not much, but at least it's some visual cover. On three.

One.

Oh _sod_ it, now he's _floating_.

Two.

Okay, he's getting ready for another one.

_Three_.

I'm up and making a mad dash for the back of the Council chambers the moment my mental countdown finishes, pushing up and _away_ from my previous position with all the force I can muster. A heartbeat later, _Sovereign_'s beam annihilates the remainder of my cover and gouges a nice big hole in the ground where I used to be. Firing blindly over my shoulder as I run I'm rewarded with the satisfying crack of two impacts.

Then again, that was out of ten rounds.

Sliding into cover behind one of the decorative pillars, I grab the third magazine.

My last one.

God _damn_ it, why didn't I think to make more?

On second thought, _why_ didn't I make a goddamn _bolter_ instead?

"Can anyone out there hear me? Admiral Kahoku, Admiral Hackett, come in. Anyone?" a slightly panicked voice crackles over the radio.

Breathing out a bit of a sigh of relief, I spare a glance out of my cover before dropping back down and tapping my comm. "Joker, what's going on out there?"

"Grayson, that you?"

"Do I have to threaten your Fornax stash again?" I pause for a moment to cough violently as my new lung protests the strain I'm putting on it, then dash for the next piece of cover right before one of _Sovereign_'s beams incinerates the one I was just hiding behind. Goddamn it, I _hate_ it when he does that. Can't he stay on the bloody ground and fight like normal people? "What's the situation up there, Joker?"

"In all honesty, it's not looking good. We're getting cut to ribbons. The geth we can handle, but that big Reaper ship is just eating everything we can throw at it for breakfast."

"Yeah, I know," I mutter under my breath. "Any chance we can get word to Arcturus? Why're you even still here, I thought Admiral Kohaku ordered you to go get the Fifth?"

"Relay closed right in my face. Had to turn the ship around, was looking for an alternate exit when they all started to go down. What the hell are you guys doing down there?"

It takes me a while to answer as another near-miss from _Sovereign_'s stupid beam gun almost takes off my head. There's no way I can keep this up forever, and I've got to get in touch with Shepard. "Long story. Trust me, it's not anymore pleasant down here than it is up there. Can you get me Shepard on the line?"

"The Commander? I don't even know if she's-" Joker's transmission cuts off briefly as the _Normandy_ is glanced and he has to focus on keeping the ship in one piece. "Yeah, take _that_ you flying toaster!" he crows after what I assume is a successful kill. "Hang on, let me see if anyone can get a fix on her location."

"Make it fast, I've got a pissed off spectre trying to fry my ass."

"You need to have your ass saved again?" the pilot asks with a chuckle.

"No, I need Shepard to finish the goddamn job. If that Reaper gets to the Presidium tower, then we're all fucked."

As I slide into the next section of cover, I suddenly realize that in my inattention I've made a mistake. I've run myself into a corner, and there's only open field between me and Saren one way, and his gun the other way. Shit. And that floating asshole is already gearing up to finish the job. "Get me that line to Shepard fast, Joker. Tell her that she needs to find the interface at the top of the Citadel Tower. It'll probably let her open the relays back up."

"And you?"

"I'm kind of busy here." A second look confirms that I'm cornered and Saren knows it. Fuck. "Just make it quick, and maybe I'll still be around for the Commander _to_ rescue."

There's a brief pause. "All right. Good luck."

The line cuts off. "Gonna need a goddamn _miracle_," I mutter to myself. All right, calm down. My heart is beating rapidly, my chest is tight and hurts like _fuck_. I cover my mouth to stifle a cough as pain rips through the implant. Bringing my hand away from my face makes me realize that this _really_ isn't good in more ways than one, because it's covered in blood. Well, fuck my life.

And I can't stop coughing. This is worse than any asthma attack I've ever had. There's got to be a way out of this. Maybe I can make a run for it, right across the open. Cut across, reach the Council seats, get behind there. The problem is that _Sovereign_ is methodically slagging every single damn piece of cover I could possibly use, which makes finding cover, well…difficult.

Not to mention the fact that he keeps bloody _shooting_ at me.

"Can't we talk about this like civilized people?" I call out, trying to stall. Need to buy more time. Come on, _think_. What would Shepard do? What would Miranda do? Hell, at this point I'd take what would sodding _Michael Westen_ do. "Like, how about tea and crumpets and we talk it over like civilized people?"

He responds by charging up another beam. Guess that's a no to the tea, then.

Right, then.

As I get ready to just get up and charge out to my very likely doom, the console behind Saren catches my eye. It's almost right across from me behind him, near the balcony. Well, near as in, it's closer to the balconyt than me. I wonder if Saren's had time to undo whatever sabotage the protheans managed to do, or if all he did was just try and close the arms. Now, if this was the movies, I'd probably just go and shoot it and solve all our problems by somehow disabling the control system that way.

But this is real life, and the only thing that would do is deprive Saren of an interface to further access the Citadel's controls and, more importantly, take away _our_ chance of undoing whatever the hell he did. So, shooting it is kind of out of the question. A part of me actually is starting to wonder what exactly Saren's job on the Citadel is. Because everything else – closing the arms, activating the relay, shutting down the relay network – all of that _Sovereign_ seems to be able to do quite handily be himself remotely.

There has to be some kind of sabotage that required physical access to the console. It makes me wonder if he's done his job already. Perhaps not, if so, then there's my chance. If I can somehow get past the floating, fireball-throwing, _glowing_ Reaper-possessed spectre standing in the way.

And then the lights go out completely, leaving us in the dark aside from the light being cast by _Sovereign_ and the battle raging outside. Throwing a brief glance out the balcony, I can see that the entire ward has gone dark. Even the possessed spectre spares a look outside, surprised by this turn of events. And then it gets even worse as I feel myself getting light and smaller objects are starting to float upwards.

Oh, _fuck_. Did we just lose artificial gravity?

I'm starting to float upwards, myself. Yeah, we lost artificial gravity, all right.

And of course, the goddamn floating dude isn't bothered by this at all and he just remains floating. Shit, I didn't have much in the way of zero-gee training, and without mobility, this is really going to suck. Although, somehow, for the moment, he seems to have forgotten about me, probably as he loses the connection to the Citadel's mainframe.

You go, Shepard! A full system reboot should buy us some time. I have _no_ idea how she managed it, but I'm pretty sure Tali had something to do with it. And then a vaguely female voice with odd mechanical, almost Reaper-like undertones announces flatly, "Main control systems offline. Emergency restart imminent. Initializing core functions. Resuming default settings. Beginning full systems diagnostic."

"No!" _Sovereign_ calls out almost angrily. It's the first time I've actually heard any sort of emotion on a Reaper's mechanical voice, and he's actually doing a pretty good impression of Darth Vader there.

But this isn't exactly the time to sit around and admire _Sovereign_'s voice acting skills. With the brief opening, I float myself out of cover and push off the column I was hiding behind, causing me to drift rather rapidly towards the mutated, changed turian.

"All right, let's see how you deal with _this_," I mutter as a flick of my wrist extends my force lance to full length and charges the capacitors. It doesn't take me long to clear the fifteen meters between us, and the taser end of the lance comes into contact with his armored torso, discharging the capacitors into him full blast. It jerks him around for a little bit and disrupts his motor functions, but I can't really tell if it hurt him any. But that wasn't the whole point.

Even though _Sovereign_ still controls Saren's body, he's subject to his host's physical responses. And while he has supreme control over the turian spectre's body, there's almost nothing he can do to prevent the involuntary muscle spasms induced by a fifty-thousand volt taser charge. That just gets his aim off me long enough for me to drift past him and towards the control console, even while he's struggling to regain control of twitchy muscles and a spasming nervous system.

And as I make my way past him, shuddering at the almost physically vile presence of the Reaper, I retract the weapon, flip it around, and open up point-blank.

The ten rounds clear the magazine surprisingly quickly, and I end up throwing an overload at him for good measure. When it comes to Reapers, there's no such thing as overkill.

Even if my barrage has left the turian's head a blasted, slagged, and gory mess and his torso with gaping holes in them. There's no doubt that Saren Arterius is now officially dead, and part of me feels sad and sick at the knowledge that a good man is dead because of me. He didn't have a chance to redeem himself, to be himself one last time, to _die_ on his terms, just because I wasn't good enough.

Because I wasn't Shepard.

The rational part of me knows that while Saren may be dead, _Sovereign_ isn't, and this probably isn't going to slow him down for long. Re-extending the lance, I use it to pull myself over to the control console as it boots back up and reveals that the Citadel is running a full software diagnostic, including all the power, communications, and mass relay systems.

In other words, Shepard just bluescreened the goddamn Citadel and now it's making sure nothing's terribly wrong. At least while it's doing so, there's nothing _Sovereign_ can do to access the mainframe, because it's still offline. And until it's back up, it's unlikely he can open the darkspace relay.

Of course, all that means is we bought time. The mass relays are still locked, and he's still on approach, so the moment the system comes back online, we're back to square one. Let's hope this thing'll let me actuall open the relays. Of course, there's nothing stopping _Sovereign_ from un-doing my un-doing of his doing, so that _also_ gets us nowhere. We should be safe with that big darkspace relay while I can keep him off the console, but it isn't going to help much in the long run.

No, what we need to do is somehow cut his access to the Citadel's systems and controls.

Which is easier said than done, considering the Reapers goddamn _built_ the Citadel.

Come on, just a little more. The loading bar is moving almost agonizingly slowly. All I need is access to the relay network controls and open them all up. Just momentary access, without _Sovereign_ knowing. So, in order to make sure he doesn't immediately clamp down on the relays at once, I have the hacking software in my omni-tool start a million other sub-processes, accessing random controls and files from this console and other across the Citadel remotely. It won't stop him from shutting me down, but maybe it'll make it more difficult for him to find me.

Of course, that is notwithstanding the fact that all he has to do is walk over and kill me, and then he can do whatever the balls he wants. Tapping my way through the console's interface, I suddenly come across something that Saren was working on before I interrupted him. It's a trace, a power systems trace for the darkspace relays.

Hell, I think I know what the protheans did.

Finishing the trace, I come to the inevitable conclusion that my guess was, in fact, correct. The protheans installed a complete override and bypass for the majority of the Citadel's powered systems. Whatever the Reapers do, this'll probably let them un-do it, if only briefly. Assuming one has the proper access codes, of course, which I don't have. But _Sovereign_ can just undo it. Just override the override, it shouldn't be a big deal for the Reaper. In the game all this did was buy time for the fleet to pound the Reaper into pieces, but now? This is too easy, too obvious. Saren could've figured that out in his _sleep_. There's got to be something more. Something like…

Like a hardware firewall preventing remote communications access from Reapers to the Citadel. On a sudden impulse, I open up my omni-tool and load up the information I got from Vendetta. Tactical data, tech data, what little cultural and xenoanthropological data they had on them, but nothing on the Citadel and its sabotage. Fuck, was Vigil the only one who had that kind of information?

Okay, calm down. It probably wasn't all that obvious to begin with. There's got to be a trick here, a hidden something. The protheans weren't stupid. They wouldn't be hiding their sabotage where it was obvious. Now I'm starting to wish I'd let Miranda copy Vendetta in his entirety, because I could sure do with some prothean advice.

"How about it, Q? A hint?" I mutter to myself as I try and thumb through the console's interface for a hint. Nothing that conveniently screams _insert prothean cheat codes_, or _press heart to continue_. Not that that's a bad thing, because as long as Saren and _Sovereign_ can't get in, then, well, we should be good, right?

There's got to be a way to get to the relay controls. _Sovereign _has those locked out for now, but he can't activate the Citadel relay yet. The only way I know of is Vigil's…whatever code he gives Shepard. Goddamn magical solutions. All right, slow down. Focus. First things first. Got to open the relays, get the fleet here. That shouldn't be too hard, right?

Right?

Except for the sinking feeling that this is probably just what _Sovereign_ wants. A quick access and shortcut around the prothean sabotage into the Citadel's mainframe. Shit. I look out the window at the battle that's going on out there as everything falls into place. Why the Reapers chose Saren for indoctrination, why they're _here_, _now_, why I felt the almost impossibly strong urge to be here.

As Admiral Ackbar so eloquently put it, _it's a trap_!

And I ran right into it.

There's no way out now. _Sovereign_ shut down the mass relays, and if I want to open them back up, I'll have to access the Citadel controls. The moment I do he'll have a way into the system. If I don't, we all die, and he wins. If I do…he can open the relay and we're all dead, anyway.

That fucking bastard planned it all along. Messed with my head, made me think I came up here to delay Saren until Shepard could get here when he knew full well that this was the best, easiest way to get what he wants. My hand hovers over the console as I struggle with that realization. And I didn't even see it coming, though I really should have. The Reapers have done this for millions of years, thousands of cycles. They've got manipulation and mind games on a galactic scale down to an art.

And now my back's against the wall and all of sentient life is walled into an untenable corner. I could leave the console alone…but then it probably won't take him long to find another way around. I can't do what Shepard did in the game, because I don't have Vigil's access codes and there's no way I can bypass any way to give _Sovereign_ access, either way. Damned if I do, damned if I don't.

If I don't, then the fleet gets cut to ribbons, _Sovereign_ and the geth take control of the Citadel, and they can spend as long as they bloody please figuring out a way to turn it on. If I do, we probably blow _Sovereign_ out of the sky, but the relay's wide open.

Looking up into the sky as another ship breaks into pieces, an asari cruiser this time, I realize there's no real choice here.

"Grayson, you still alive down there?"

"I'm here." I duck behind the console, waiting for it to boot back up while priming my omni-tool's hacking suite to do…something. I'll think of something. I hope. At least this little lull has given my lungs a break. Still hurts like hell, but at least it doesn't feel like I'll actually be coughing up that new lung anymore.

Joker's voice seems a little unsure as he navigates the frigate around a hot combat zone. "I can't reach the Commander. Her comm's being jammed, and I lost her locator beacon. It's bad down there, Grayson."

"You talk to her?"

"For maybe twenty seconds before she got jammed, yeah."

Shit. "What was her position?"

"Presidium power distribution node, being overrun by geth. Hold on." There's a rattle and crash over the line as the _Normandy_ does…something. Hopefully nothing too damaging. At least the comms are still intact, because a moment later, Joker's back. "Look, I've got a squadron securing a relay. If you can open it up, I can go through and bring the fleet."

"All right." Looking over at Saren's still inert form, I'm really hoping that _Sovereign_ will take his sweet time reanimating that corpse. I only need a few seconds. "Your window's going to be tight. I can't outhack that goddamn space-squid."

"I know. Give me the word, and I'll be through before you can say-"

"Don't. Finish. That sentence," I chuckle. "Just get ready. Whatever Shepard did, it bought us some time."

"All right."

"And Joker?"

"Yeah?"

"When you get to Anderson, tell him to drop the hammer on the Presidium. Slag this place and the Reaper, everything they've got. Don't let him get to the Citadel Tower."

There's a brief pause as the pilot lets that sink in. "What about collateral damage?"

"A little late for that. Stopping this Reaper is more important than having a nice comfy place for the Council to sit."

"Got it. And Grayson?"

The console finally beeps, indicating that it's out of diagnostic mode, and I start the hack. "What's up?" I ask almost absently.

"Find the Commander if you can."

That actually gets a brief grin from me. Not that Joker can see it. "I don't think you've got to worry about her, Moreau. If there's any person who can take care of themselves, it's Shepard. Stand by."

"Copy that."

There's a heavy thud behind me, and after casting a brief look over my shoulder, I _really_ wish I hadn't. The bleeding, scorched, broken body is trying to right itself off the ground, with the Reaper trying to coordinate its limbs in such a fashion to get it to stand up, something made almost infinitely more difficult by the lack of gravity.

I lower my hand onto the console's holographic interface, running my omni-tool's command line through it to bring up the Citadel's controls. It chirps in acknowledgement of the orders and starts initializing the controls as Avina's voice announces, "Citadel main interface activated. Initializing command sequence."

Her voice morphs into a gravelly, almost grouchy male voice that echoes with the metallic thrum of a translator. "No Reaper indoctrination detected. Access granted."

As I do my best to ignore the sounds of the undead spectre behind me trying to get to his feet and urge on the console to run its course so I can open the damn relays, the puzzle falls into place. The protheans had a Reaper lockout, just like on their VIs. _Sovereign_ needed Saren for access to the secured Citadel systems, to find out why he couldn't remotely activate the relay. Saren in turn probably found this console, discovered that the protheans had sabotaged Reaper communications and placed a lockout on it.

And then they needed me, or someone, anyone who wasn't indoctrinated to activate the console for them so they could manually access the Citadel's controls. We all played right into their hands. That's why Saren was just sitting here, looking all pretty and waiting for Shepard to arrive in the game. Fuck, I was so bloody stupid, this is the oldest bad-guy trick in the book. Place people in a situation that forces them to make an impossible decision that'll end badly either way. As the console boots, though, a plan starts to form. _Sovereign_'s communications are still hampered by whatever the protheans did. So if he needs manual access…we deny him that.

A hard thud behind me causes me to look over my shoulder. Shit, he's up.

Man, why didn't I think to throw Saren's corpse over the goddamn balcony when I had the chance?

And then the console chirps as it loads the full command interface, and I swipe across the interface, bringing up the relay controls. I can hear Saren's corpse stumbling its way towards me, and only gritting my teeth and a controlled sense of urgency have me not turn around to look.

Barely.

When the menu finally comes up, I just swing my entire arm through the menu screen, toggling as many of them on as I possibly can, before turning around, forcelance extended. This is going to be _not _fun without gravity.

Of course, I completely forgot that this isn't going to bother _Sovereign_ any, because he can goddamn _levitate_. And in the background, the comms are still filled with frantic voices and barked orders.

"_Destiny Ascension _to Citadel Fleet. The Council is aboard, repeat, the Council is aboard. We're clearing the berth, requesting assistance."

"Acknowledged, _Destiny Ascension_. We're moving to cover you."

"Get them the _hell_ off me, they're everywhere!"

"Open fire, maintain your ranks!"

I tap my radio. "You're clear, _Normandy_. Godspeed."

"Copy that. We'll be back before you know it."

And then a new voice cuts into my exchange with Joker, gravelly and raspy, but sounding much younger than I remember it to. "_Normandy_, this is Admiral Hackett aboard the _Destiny Ascension_. I'm issuing you my personal communications codes for Arcturus Station. Tell Admiral Cole of the First to commence Operation Raptor Talon."

"What…copy that, Admiral," Joker finally replies after getting over his surprise.

Amongst all the crap that was happening, I almost forgot that Hackett was with the Council. Losing him now would've really dropped the shit on us. I'm glad he's still alive, but it's not like he's any safer now aboard the asari flagship. The _Destiny Ascension_ already took a hell of a pounding while docked, and it isn't going to get any easier from here on out.

And then Saren's corpse is lunging for me, propelled by whatever _Sovereign_ does to make it float in mid-air. Without leverage or gravity, it's almost impossible to dodge out of the way, so all I can do is brandish my staff and try to redirect the impact of a fully armored turian body into mine. I'm only partially successful, and the two of us tumble out onto the balcony, floating in the air and bumping into all sorts of shit.

Let me tell you, having your back crushed into a railing is not a pleasant experience.

It is, however, more pleasant than being snarled at by a possessed turian missing half his face. Yeah, that's just…gross. Kicking Saren off me, I watch for a moment as he floats away from me, and bring my force lance in between the two of us. As long as he doesn't like, try and shoot me, I think I have a chance. With Saren dead, _Sovereign_ shouldn't be nearly as tough in hand-to-hand. After all, what does a giant robotic space squid know about melee combat, right?

Except for the fact that he's a goddamn _immortal_, inexhaustible giant space squid. Well, not immortal per se, but short of complete disintegration or killing of the ship overhead, there isn't much I can do to stop him from coming after me. Then again, I don't have to _kill_ him, I just have to keep him away from the controls. As long as he has to manually access the Citadel's mainframe, and as long as I can keep him away from said mainframe, we're good.

I pull myself over to the console and duck behind it as he starts that glowing shit again, hoping that maybe he won't be stupid enough to try and fire anywhere close to the access terminal that he needs to gain control of the Citadel's systems. And of course, in my stupidity, I _forgot_ to program my fabber to make more ammo. Shit.

There's got to be more to this omni-tool's combat functionality than the friggin' overload. Like…like an incinerate, or something. It's got to be in there somewhere.

I just can't find it. _Why_ didn't I read the damn manual?

At least I was right, and _Sovereign_ isn't actually shooting at me. Of course, that just means he does this stupid Dragonball thing where he starts glowing and then just catapults himself towards me like he's some kind of goddamn torpedo. I do make it out of the way this time by virtue of just pushing off the ground. Unfortunately, that sets me drifting randomly which, in a wide open space like this with nowhere to grab onto and nothing to stop your momentum until you bump into something, isn't exactly a good thing.

_Sovereign_ takes the opportunity and latches on to the console, trying to re-establish his bypass as he just grabs a cable and jacks it straight into one of the implants on Saren's body. Yuck. Goddamn it, I've got to stop him from doing that.

So I key an overload into my omni-tool and let fly with it. The electric discharge slams a little to the left of my aimed target, splashing into the console instead of the turian corpse, interrupting circuits and triggering safeties causing the console to once again restart. All right, I'll take that.

My back rams into the Council chamber's ceiling, causing me to bounce off rather painfully. A little constricting of my lungs reminds me that this probably isn't too healthy for me in more ways than the bumps, bruises, and potential death from a douchy Reaper. Forcing back a wracking cough and a pseudo asthma-attack, I twist around and push back off the ceiling, aiming right for _Sovereign_. I don't have a way to build up the kind of speed that he can, but I'm not hoping for an impact, anyway.

Mostly because me hitting him with any kind of force would probably result in me losing. Every time.

Instead, I retract the force lance and grab on to the console as I pass by, arresting my drift right in front of him as I crouch close to the ground. Swinging around and bracing my back against the console, I press the stud on the force lance's handle, causing it to extend with enough force to slam into the undead turian and send him careening into the air over the balcony before he can react.

Now if only gravity would come back on so that we could be done with him. Preferably before he comes…oh, too late. He's already righted himself, doing that stupid anime glowing-while-flying thing and is heading right back for me. Only this time, I'm ready. I rear back, grasping the force lance at the very end of it, and swing it like a goddamn baseball bat. And while I've never been any good at baseball – I was positively _suckish_ the couple times I tried it – the swing is true and it connects with Saren's already disfigured head with a sickening crack of crushing bone and the disgusting squelch of displacing soft tissue, sending him flying back out and me into the Council chamber.

And then with a jarring thud, gravity comes back online, dropping me hard on the ground, right on my left elbow that I stupidly stuck out to brace my fall. There's a nasty crack and I almost black out from the pain as the bone breaks from the impact. Shit.

Deep breaths. Focus. Breathe in. Let it out. Slowly.

Gritting my teeth against the pain, I prop myself up and reach for my force lance with my right. Goddammit, I never used to be this injury-prone. An attempt to actually move my left arm from the elbow down results in a wave of pain that quickly makes me reconsider any further movement on that limb as I stagger to my feet and over to the balcony railing.

Overhead, _Sovereign_'s large, black form looms ever closer, but there's no sign of Saren's body. With any luck, it's about twenty or thirty stories down, having done a passable imitation of a bug on a windshield as it goes splat against the asphalt. Or whatever it is they use to pave their sidewalks on the Citadel.

I pause there for a moment, looking down, before flipping off the Reaper floating in the sky and turning back to the console. There's nothing I can do to lock it out, unfortunately, and now there's geth dropships incoming to my location. I can already tell that _Sovereign_ is working his way through the prothean firewalls, because he's rearranging little things here and there, trying to occupy it, trying to find a way around it. Great. Just fucking _wonderful_. I suppose now that _Sovereign_ knows what's up, a geth can probably do the rest. Those dropships aren't going to take long to get here. Maybe it'd help if I blew up the console?

Probably not, but it sure would make me _feel_ better.

At least without anyone to physically man the controls, _Sovereign_ will have to try and hack his way in. Maybe that'll be enough time to blow his ass up.

And then suddenly my comm lights up with incoming messages.

"All units, you have your orders. Lock targets and engage. _Venture_, _Majestic_, take your squadrons and cover the _Destiny Ascension_. Be aware, we have friendlies on that ship. All other units, fire at will. Repeat, weapons free, weapons free," Anderson's voice cuts through the static.

"David, it's good to hear your voice," Hackett responds from the helm of the asari dreadnought, the transmission cut up and muddled by the damage the ship has already suffered. "We're taking heavy fire. Hull breaches on major decks. Cover fire would be appreciated."

"Help is on the way, Admiral. Just hang in there."

And looking up, suddenly there's a cascade of brilliant light as round after round from the fleet impacts the Reaper, what looks like a half-dozen dreadnoughts opening up with their main cannon and entire wings of frigates burning hard towards _Sovereign_, releasing clouds of disruptor torpedos. And while his damn barriers are still holding, at least now I think he realizes he's in trouble.

"Nice timing, Joker," I whisper to myself as I lean back against the console. Geth dropships are being shot out of the sky in droves, and the bulk of the fleet is pounding on the Reaper, trying to break down his barriers.

"_Destiny Ascension_, welcome to the Alliance Fifth Fleet," Anderson's voice returns over the radio amidst status reports, weapons callouts, and damage assessments, and I let out a little sigh of relief. The dreadnought is safe.

I flip on my radio tiredly, trying to catch my breath between the exertion and pain, a little unsure who I'm even calling. On second thought, I should probably see if someone can swing by and pick me up, or something, because I _really_ don't want to stay here any longer than I absolutely have to. And I probably should do something about this damn console.

Accessing it for the last time, I find the controls for the arms and open them up fully, exposing the Reaper and hopefiully minimizing the collateral damage that's bound to happen from his destruction.

Joker. I should probably call Joker. See if they can send a shuttle, or bring the ship in close enough, or something. Yeah. And then-

A clawed, armored hand clamps down on the balcony railing next to me, slamming down with enough force to put a sizeable dent in it. I blink in surprise and look at it twice. Oh Divine, please let me be hallucinating.

I'm hallucinating, right?

The second arm reaches up, pulling a mangled torso up and over the wrought iron rails.

If I'm hallucinating, this is a hell of a nightmare.

Goddamn it, what does it take to kill this guy?

And then he's floating up and in front of me, and even though he's an indifferent, ancient space-machine, I can tell he's upset. Just slightly.

Maybe it was the glowing golden eyes, or the glowing body, or the _fucking particle beam he's shooting at me_ that gave it away. I dive to the side, and the beam misses me, but I land on my busted arm instead. _Fuck_, that hurts.

The force lance is useless, because I only have the one hand to swing it with, and so's my omni-tool, because the stupid thing is hanging on my left wrist. Which just happens to be the arm I can't use. Well…

Fuck.

Ducking out of the way of a second beam, I'm really starting to wish I had a lightsaber or something handy, because I've got _no_ idea how to deal with this shit. Goddamn it, Q, give me a fucking _break_! I killed his ass _twice_ already!

My hand goes to the radio. Only one way to finish this, then. There's no way I'm letting him at that console again. "Grayson to _Normandy_, do you read?"

"Joker here, I'm kind of busy!"

"Joker, I need a strafing run on my location-"

"In case you hadn't noticed, there's a huge battle going on here, I'm a bit busy trying to keep this ship in one piece for the Commander," his strained voice comes back.

I get it, I really do, but right now, I really need him to take out this damn console. "Joker, if you don't frag this location right _now_, then that Reaper you've been fighting is going to have friends very soon," I yell back over the comm as the possessed Saren – technically, just his reanimated corpse - continues to throw energy beams at me. Goddamn Reapers and their possession.

There's a little pause as the _Normandy_'s pilot considers the options. At least, I hope that's what he's doing. "Where do you need it?"

"Right on top of me." Looking up at the platform the Council usually sits on, I can barely make out the control console in the light cast by the glowing spectre. Yes, glowing. Like, glowing like a fucking lava-lamp. Come to think of it, he _kind_ of looks like the Spirit of the Abyss right now, except he's glowing golden instead of red. Hey, there's a scary thought.

"What about you?"

"Don't worry about me, just take this goddamn place out. Bring the rain, Moreau. Hot and fast. Hot and fast."

"That's my speciality. Hold on to something."

"Thanks, Joker."

"Yeah, no problem." The line remains open, but he pauses for a moment. "Grayson? Good luck."


	33. Chapter 33

**Author's Note: **I apologize for the delay and not posting a chapter last week, but I was sick for a couple of days and really wasn't happy with the quality of my writing then, so rather than put it out, I decided to hold off and go over it again once I wasn't sick. Hope you enjoy, and thanks for waiting! Here's an extra-long chapter to make up for it.

**Chapter Thirty-Three**

The SR-1 may not be as heavily armed as the later Cerberus rebuild, but it still can bring to bear a surprising amount of firepower, just like all Alliance frigates. Between GARDIAN laser emplacements, torpedo tubes, and main batteries, an Alliance frigate carries enough firepower on an agile enough platform to give a turian cruiser a run for its money on a good day. And while they don't have the weapons yield capable of doing massive damage to more heavily armored targets like dreadnoughts, in squadrons they can be quite deadly.

And it's still more than enough to vape a building.

The good news is that in a couple of seconds, the Council chamber on top of the Presidium Tower is going to be history, along with the Reapers' access console and Saren's possessed body.

The bad news is that I'm still _in_ said building.

Ignoring _Sovereign_ completely, I make a mad dash for the elevator, only realizing that the damn thing is _out of fucking order_ from an earlier hit to the building when I get there. Well…fuck. The _Normandy_ is going to be here in a minute, and I _really_ don't want to be in the same place that Joker's going to be bringing the heat on to. Thankfully, there's a stairwell behind the elevator, and I rush in, not even bothering to look back at _Sovereign_ trying to mess with the console. I know why he's not too worried, because from the shadows the ship is casting, he's moving himself in between the tower and the battle above, trying to block off access.

But I know Joker can fly circles around him.

Pushing the door open, I rush down, taking the stairs two and three at a time, grabbing onto the railing and swinging myself around the corners. Despite my urgency and haste, I've barely made it down two flights when the building starts to shake from the low rumble of a ship passing by overhead at combat speeds. A moment later the shaking stops and is replaced by an earth-shattering roar as the disruptor torpedos strike home, obliterating the top floor and causing the entire building to shake worse than in an earthquake.

Bracing myself into a corner in the stairwell, there's nothing really I can do other than curl myself into a tiny ball and hope nothing actually falls down on top of me. Using anti-ship weaponry on a building of all things is probably overkill to the extreme, because unlike breaching charges or dedicated breaching munitions like the AT-4, well, the blast isn't content to just wipe out everything in a plane on that floor, but instead causes the ceiling and floor to bulge out as the blast wave expands and tries to penetrate further.

There's a horrific screech of failing metal and crumbling concrete as pieces of the ceiling collapse and the steel girders twist and deform under the heat and pressure. I look up after a terrifying minute of huddling, wondering if it's safe to come out, now that the noise and movement has stopped. There's dust in the air everywhere, but the stairwell seems to be pretty intact. I don't even want to chance a way up to the floor above, because I'm pretty sure I'm not going to like what I'll see there. A glimpse of a mangled steel door confirms that thought. Yeah, don't wanna know. But there's no way in _hell_ Saren's corpse survived that. And _Sovereign_ is going to have to find himself a new console.

And then a sobering thought hits me. If I was the Reapers, I wouldn't put in just the one access point, because that'd be stupidity to the extreme. No, I'd have redundancy, backups, and backups for my backups. The Citadel's mainframe can be accessed from a lot of points across the station, most of which are under C-Sec control, and I'm willing to bet more than one of them have hidden subroutines that allow them to activate the Reaper protocols. Shit.

"Grayson, you still alive?"

"I'm here," I manage to respond through a fit of coughs brought on by all the dust. "That was some nice shooting, Joker. How's the target look?" At least we can deny him one access point. Because I've got no bloody clue where to look for the others, so I'm not going to worry about them, at least not till I'm off this damn building before it pulls a World Trade Center and decides to collapse. At least everyone else had the good sense to vacate the damn building when the geth attacked.

"How do you think it looks after it took a pair of torpedos to the face?" the pilot replies almost jovially. "Look, I can swing by and pick you up in-"

He cuts off abruptly, which is never a good sign. I can tell the _Normandy_ is still there, though, because I can hear the alarm klaxons over the open comm line. "Joker?"

"You've got incoming, there's a geth destroyer bound for your location. We're trying to take her out, but-"

Shit. _Why_ won't this day _end_? I flip my radio back on. "Just do what you can. I'm going to try and make my way down." We both know that I'm stuck here unless that destroyer is taken care of, because there's no way he can pick me up while under fire from a freakin' _geth destroyer_. And we both know that there's no way I'm reaching the ground floor before it gets here and slags the building.

As I continue climbing down the stairs, there's a victorious whoop over the line, then a cautionary mumble. "Shit. Grayson?"

"Yeah?" I barely suppress a cough from the exertion. Damn, my lungs are burning up. It's like having an asthma attack and a heart attack all rolled up into a nice little package. Season well, serve with fries.

"Good news and bad news for you. The destroyer's not going to be a problem for pickup."

"What's the bad news?"

"It won't be a problem because we took out it's engines. It's on a collision course with the Presidium Tower."

"Well…shit."

"No kidding. Look, get out of there as fast as you can. How close to an exit level are you?"

I check the map on my omni-tool while running down the stairs haphazardly. The answer, unfortunately, is, "not close enough," I tell him. "What's the ETA on that thing hitting the tower?"

"A minute, maybe two."

"Bucky cables?" I suggest desperately. Because I _really_ don't want to know how much abuse this damn tower can take. I mean, for crying out loud, this thing's already been hit by another tower and then had the top floor blasted out by a warship. If it doesn't look like the goddamn leaning tower of Pisa by now, I'd be very surprised. I really don't want to know if Saren-slash-_Sovereign_ survived, because I'm pretty sure I won't like the answer to that. At least the console probably didn't.

"No go, she's coming in too hot. Between her mass and speed, she'd drag us down with her." Joker barks a few orders over his shoulder as the frigate flies through the giant clusterfuck in the sky. "Look, can you find a window exit somewhere? You're four hundred meters off the ground of the ward, if you can get out, we'll catch you."

Are you bloody kidding me? Jump _off_ a building and wait for a ship to _catch_ me? Somehow that strikes me as a very unsafe idea. On the other hand, I _really_ don't want to be in this building when a freaking thirty-thousand metric ton destroyer rams into it at who knows what kind of speed. The kinetic energy alone probably equals that of a major thermonuclear weapon.

Suddenly, jumping doesn't seem like such a bad idea.

I take the next exit out the stairwell and rush for the nearest balcony. Good, looks like there's very little obstructing the way down. On the downside, there's _very little obstructing the way down_. _All_ the way down. I'm still thirty or so stories off the ground. "Joker? I'm here. Got a fix on my location?"

"Yeah, on my way."

"You've done this before, right?" As crazy as Shepard is, she's _got_ to have done this before. It'd sure make me feel a hell of a lot better if _someone_ had. "Right?"

"Not exactly. I've done it in a simulator." Joker's usually humorous and dry sarcastic tone is even and sober for a change. "Look, it's pretty simple in theory. I'll match your rate of descent and then slow down incrementally so you don't go splat against the _Normandy_'s airlock at terminal velocity. It'll be fine."

I'm fighting to swallow a huge lump in my throat. Dammit, I _so_ did not sign up for this crap. This isn't goddamn Mission Impossible. But a glance to the left at the burning, out of control geth destroyer that's barreling towards the Presidium Tower at some ridiculously crazy speed convinces me that it's probably the better option anyway. "Just tell me when to jump. And Joker?"

"Yeah?"

"If you don't catch me, I'm coming back to fucking haunt you, got that?"

"Got it. Get ready."

"Hurry up, that damn thing's getting closer."

"Ten seconds."

"She's gonna be here in less than that, Moreau…"

"Hang on, just stay there a little longer!"

"Moreau…"

"Almost there-"

The destroyer impacts the building almost in slow motion. I can see its prow making contact with the building before it vanishes from my line of sight, but it's not hard to imagine the hardened metal hull piercing through the concrete and into the tower. Its insect-like legs are smashed and then the bulk of the ship hits home.

The entire tower sways from the enourmous impact, the upper half of the building shearing right along the floor where the destroyer hit, shifting and sliding off, almost as if someone had pushed the upper half of a tiered cake off the bottom. The noise is indescribably horrid, crunching and wrenching, and yet the vertigo is worse. There's no sense of up or down anymore as the floor shakes and twists, drops and slides away from underneath your feet. It's almost sickening as you watch the world spin around you when you're on the outside, able to see and make sense of the fact that what's supposed to be _up_ suddenly no longer isn't.

It's worse than the damn tower on Therum.

And then the corridor behind me erupts in fire, flinging doors off their hinges and sending shrapnel down the hall.

Time's up.

Closing my eyes and taking a deep breath, I push off the balcony railing, trying to duck under and get as far away from the debris that's spewing out of the building behind me. And for a moment I'm weightless, but it doesn't take long before gravity reasserts itself and the air rushes past me.

"Grayson? Grayson? Come in," I hear over the radio, muffled by the torrent of air that's barreling past my head.

There's no way for me to reply, no matter how much I yell into the mike all it picks up is static and noise. _Well,_ _this sucks_ is all I can think as a strange calm falls over me, when you realize that you've lost complete control of the situation and your life is in the hands of someone else. It's somewhere between absolutely scared shitless and indifferent acceptance of the situation. Taking a deep breath, I force my eyes open, twisting my body around so that I don't have to look at the approaching ground.

Let's see...I'm roughly four-hundred and fifty meters up in the air. Taking into account my body's cross sectional area, it should take me about fifteen seconds to hit terminal velocity. Rearranging the equations and solving for the addition of drag into the free-fall, estimating my body's drag force…I should hit terminal velocity about halfway down the tower, roughly two-hundred and thirty meters into my fall. That means after I hit terminal velocity, I have about…

Five seconds before I go splat.

Twenty seconds total.

Silently counting down, I can't really help but look up into the sky and watch the space battle raging overhead. As far away as I am, I can't hear anything, and even if I could, it would be drowned out by the air I'm falling through. But from here it looks almost…beautiful. Little streaks of light here are giant projectiles glowing with kinetic energy as they're sent streaking across space, little dots and flares and the contrails of missiles light the sky, appearing for all the world like little shooting stars.

And every now and then this virtual starscape is interrupted by the birth of a nova, a brilliant flare of light and fire, of expanding gases and igniting fuel as another ship dies a fiery death. This far removed from the battle, unable to hear the chatter, it's almost peaceful, almost beautiful.

And let's face it, this probably isn't a bad way to die, looking up into the stars. Hell, I've done more in the past six, seven months than I'd ever thought I would accomplish in a lifetime. I've been to space, I've journeyed among the stars, and, as corny as it may sound, that's more than I ever expected I would be able to do.

"Well, Q, this probably wasn't what you had in mind," I whisper to myself, with a bit of a humorless chuckle, not really expecting him to answer or come to my rescue. Hey, I got into this mess by my lonesome, thinking I could pull a Shepard. I was wrong, I accept the consequences. "That's what you get for not bringing James Kirk or Mike Westen," I add with a slight, defiant grin.

Ten seconds. I'm almost at terminal velocity. Should be somewhere around ninety-five percent of it, or so. The battle is still raging above, and I can see a large portion of the sky being blotted out by _Sovereign_, his barriers glowing now and allowing a few stray shots through.

Twelve seconds. A massive railshot passes through his kinetic barrier and slams home into the armored bulk of the Reaper, the crackling, glowing metal slug punching a sizeable hole into the broadside and shoving him off-course.

That bitch is going down, at least, I can conclude with a satisfied, if grim, smile. If nothing else, I didn't fuck up badly enough that _Sovereign _wins.

Fourteen seconds. Not long now. Going splat against the asphalt from this high up shouldn't even hurt much, right? There's worse ways to go, I suppose. Like-

And then a raging torrent of air passes by me as a white and black shape drops past, air-braking as it slams through the atmosphere, fins and stabilizers extended. The almost unreal shape slows to a halt right below me and amidst the hurling currents of air and dirt, I can make out a hatch opening as the ship approaches me…or is it the other way round?

It comes ever closer, and on instinct I twist around in mid-air, righting myself so I can enter the hatch feet-first. Two seconds later I'm inside, slamming into the metal grating with almost bone-jarring force, but I'm alive, at least, and as the airlock closes above me I can finally hear again, the ringing in my ears notwithstanding.

"Come on, baby, come on, just a little more…" I can hear Joker's strained voice over our still open comm line. And then the ship jerks up sharply, pressing me into the deck plating as the entire concept of _up_ and _ground_ once again seem to play hopscotch and turn round and round.

Pulling what is probably a dangerous number of Gees even with whatever the hell they use to cancel out inertial forces, I can hear the ship's structure groaning in protest around me, and for the umpteenth time that day I'm on the verge of passing out.

And then it's over, and the _Normandy_ levels out, and a victorious shout comes over the comm. Weakly, I reach for my radio and thumb it on. "Nice catch, Moreau," I whisper, before letting my head sink back down to the floor, only vaguely aware of the wracking cough that shakes my body and the two pairs of arms grabbing hold of me and lifting me upright.

T

"Welcome back to the land of the living."

That voice and the soothingly dimmed lights of the _Normandy_'s med bay are the first things that greet me on my journey back to consciousness. Opening my eyes, I realize I'm sitting up on one of the beds in Chakwas's domain, but the first thing that comes out of my mouth isn't a greeting, but a wracking cough as my lungs finally protest their violent treatment. The Doc's smiling down at me, her silver hair tied back and revealing a still rather nasty bruise on her forehead, but otherwise she's just the same as always.

"Take it easy. You're lucky that there was only minor damage to your new lung. Take deep, slow breaths. There, that's good."

"What'd I miss?" I ask her in between doing as she tells me. It does help, a little, and I no longer feel like I'm going to cough up my lungs.

"Not much. You were only out a couple of minutes while we brought you down here from the dorsal airlock." Chakwas reaches over and hands me a glass. "Here, drink. It's got a muscle relaxant, painkillers, and some stimulants. It'll help with the tightness in your chest."

Gulping down the surprisingly not all that foul-tasting liquid, I tip my head back, still spluttering and coughing a little. "Thanks, Doc. Good to see you back up on your feet."

"Oh, it wasn't that bad. My head is hard, you see. Stubborn with age, as the Commander would say," Chakwas replies with the easy smile and genuinely friendly demeanor that makes her such a great doctor. "Since I'm unlikely to be able to hold you here for long and the Commander probably wants a sitrep, I should probably be brief."

"The Commander? Shepard's on board?"

"We're en route to pick her up now."

Nodding, I lean back against the headboard and let Chakwas fuss over me with scanners and whatever else she needs to diagnose and run her check-up. "What's the damage this time?" I ask her almost flippantly, though deep down, I'm very aware how lucky I am to even be able to say the _this time_ part. Looks like I owe Joker another drink.

"Not much, just some light bleeding around your new lung. The spliced blood vessels couldn't handle the oxygen demand and we've got some minor ruptures, which should be taken care of with some rest. Your arm is set, but that will take a little bit of time to heal, unfortunately, and your ribs should be fine within a couple of days."

Wait, my ribs? Feeling along my torso with my right hand, I realize that part of my ribcage has been bandaged. "Bruised or broken?" I ask her.

"Bruised." Finally, Chakwas looks up, shines her obligatory penlight in my eyes, and then leans back in satisfaction. "You're in decent health, I would say, although I would advise against combat deployment. Not that you're likely to listen to me either way."

"Oh, I'm tempted, Doc, I'm tempted."

That gets a chuckle from her. "You're more like the Commander than you're willing to admit…or willing to see, Lieutenant. Take it from someone who knows."

"Thanks," I say, before the full weight of her words hits me. Suddenly, my throat is dry and I remember what Q told me a couple of days ago when I asked him what could possibly be worse than the knowledge of the impending Reaper invasion.

_Jane Shepard's trust_.

Then again, I'm already changing things, why not see if Shepard doesn't have to die to the Collectors the first time. Although, that'd be a hell of a major change. Part of me feels terrible for even thinking of just letting her die because, hey, she comes back to life, right? I'm appalled at myself for thinking so cavalierly, really, but another part of me is asking what would happen if she doesn't die, how things would change, and if possibly things could get _worse_ in the long run.

I hate my life.

The ship trembles slightly as Joker maneuvers her around, and then his voice comes across the intercom. "Welcome back, Commander."

That's my cue to go, I suppose. Pushing off the bed, I fumble around for a bit, trying to maneuver my immobilized left arm around without smacking it into anything. Chakwas is already holding out my belt with the force lance in its holster and with her help, I buckle it around my waist. Looking good there, almost ready to go back into action. Aside from, you know, the busted arm, and the busted lung.

And, apparently, the busted head, because I've got to be bat-shit _crazy_. A couple of months ago, hell, even a couple of _weeks_ ago, my first impulse would've been to let the professionals like Shepard sort out this clusterfuck. I'm just the funny little guy who provides the intelligence and occasional insight. But somewhere along the line I suppose I caught the goddamn hero syndrome. Have to do what's right, have to do my part no matter the cost, right?

And then you almost get killed.

Hell, it makes you think. Getting shot at by the geth is one thing. Getting killed in action by _Sovereign_ or Saren is one thing. You're done. You're dead almost before you realize it. Dying by falling off a building, by having time to think about what just happened and that you're about to die, that's another matter entirely. With a wry grin, I can admit to myself that I completely fucked that up. I should never have gone to face Saren by myself. I should've called Miranda, should've taken Calhoun, should've taken someone, _anyone_ with me, because they're _trained _for this shit.

I'm _not_.

Somewhere along the line I forgot that. Through all the fighting and all the deployments and all the hectic shitstorm of the past few weeks, I lost myself. I took my place in a line of soldiers, never really thinking past the next firefight. I no longer recognized the man in the mirror, and I was too damn busy to notice. I arrogantly thought that just because I'd survived a couple of combat missions with Shepard, that I was ready to play the big leagues. That little showdown with our resident possessed spectre was a real eye-opener. I suppose I probably used up all the luck that's been saving up over the years on surviving that one encounter. And then there's the fact that I almost played right into _Sovereign_'s plans.

And no matter how much training Miranda's crammed into my head, how many obstacle courses I run and how many shooting galleries I demolish, I'm just…me. I'm no Shepard, or Miranda, or Garrus. This isn't what I do. My weapon isn't a gun, or brute force.

My weapon is what I _know_.

And it's high time I remembered that and put it back to good use.

"Thanks, Doc," I tell her and walk out of the med bay, heading for the CIC. By the time I get there, Shepard and her ground crew are already hunched over the tactical display that is now showing a schematic of the Citadel. Their armors are scorched and battered, singed and dented, but they're all none the worse for wear. Even Kaidan and Wrex, the two I'd worried the most about with regards to the Virmire mission. And standing amongst them is a salarian I almost don't recognize, until he starts speaking.

Holy crap, it's Captain Kirrahe. What the hell is he doing aboard the _Normandy_?

Finally, Shepard notices my presence, and waves me over, sending me a strange look. I suppose it's understandable, because here I am, in the middle of all of these armored colossi, standing in just my shirt and slacks, one arm in a cast and looking like hell warmed over. "Lieutenant," she nods curtly, gesturing towards the holo-display. "Any thoughts?"

No _how the hell did you get here_, no _what the hell did you do_, no nothing. All professional, just like you'd expect from her. With a grimace, I look over the tactical display. The Reaper is surrounded and taking a pounding, but something's still not quite right here. I can't believe he'd be finished so easily, that he wouldn't have any backup plan. First order of business, anyway, is to remove any chance he has at interfacing with the Citadel's mainframe. Now he knows where the problem is, and that in itself is _very_ dangerous. There's too many geth on the station for it to not be an issue, and if only one of them manages to get to a control console like the one in the Council chambers…we're fucked.

"The Citadel is a giant mass relay into whatever dark space the Reapers are currently in, and _Sovereign_ is trying to activate it. The protheans managed to sabotage any short-range wireless communications between Reaper sources and the Citadel mainframe, so it can only be done manually," I inform them bluntly. The time for sublety is over.

"That's why he needed Saren," Tali adds in sudden insight. "To determine the nature of the sabotage and find a way around it."

"Right." I can't help but throw a furtive glance at the Reaper's holographic representation in the middle of it all. "There was one access point at the top of the Citadel Tower. The protheans had it locked out against anyone who was indoctrinated or carrying Reaper tech."

"The one you had Joker frag." That was Shepard. "We have a prothean access code that'll let us take control of the station's functions, but nowhere to do it from, now."

"Yeah. But there's got to be more. Why just limit yourself to a single point from which to enact your nefarious plans? _Sovereign_ by now has to know that he won't last much longer, with the entirety of the fleet firing on him even he can't withstand that kind of punishment for long. There's got to be a reason why he isn't retreating, why he isn't running to try again later."

"A second attempt?" Kirrahe asks curiously. "Would make sense. Now that Reaper is aware of sabotage, can be undone by most technicians. Just a matter of running decryption."

"Or geth engineers," Garrus rumbles. "There's got to be thousands of geth on the Citadel by now. Any one of them could be receiving orders to fix the sabotage by now. Or even directly access the controls for the relay."

"How do we know where to look? We can't stop them all in time, and all he has to do is open it and send a signal," Kaidan muses, his helmet clutched under his arm. "There's no way to locate them?"

I shake my head in negative. "It's not even that. I, uh…I gave him a shortcut."

"What?" Shepard's eyes bore into me, demanding an answer and woe be me if it isn't a damn good one.

"Had to. It was either that or leave the relays closed and the fleet stranded on the other side. We wouldn't have had the firepower to take him out, and then he would've eventually opened the relay, anyway," I tell her quietly. "It was either let him have access and bring in the fleet, or let the Citadel Fleet die."

"I see…"

"No, you don't," I shake my head at Shepard. "This was his plan all along. Look, he needed Saren to find out what was wrong with his access to the Citadel. And then he realizes that thanks to the prothean lockout, he can't use the console, so he needs someone else to do it. Someone else to open the command interface for him, bypass the prothean lockout so anyone else can use it."

"So any geth from any access point across the Citadel could activate the relay? That's bad," Garrus mutters, his mandibles fluttering in thought. "There's no way we can deny all of them access."

"So the only way to stop it all…is to go there." Shepard looks at us, and I have a bad feeling that I know what she's planning. Her extended arm is pointing right at _Sovereign_'s image over the war table.

Dammit, I hate it when I'm right. But she's got a point. There's no way for us to track down all possible locations, and the only common point is the damn Reaper floating over all our heads. If we can take him out, or somehow prevent him from sending orders, then we're home free, for now.

"I was under the impression that destroying that ship was already a priority," I mutter under my breath.

She still hears me. "It is, but it won't happen in time. The only way we can stop it…is to _board_ it."

"'scuse me, Commander?" Joker calls from the cockpit. "I couldn't help but overhear you back there. Do we even know if that thing has a way in? I don't know about you, but I didn't get close enough to see if it's got docking bays anywhere."

Tali pulls up the detailed information I recovered from Vendetta. "It does, but the _Normandy_ is too large to get in close enough. We would have to take a shuttle."

Well, there's something new. As far as I can tell, there wasn't a single instance of you ever boarding a Reaper aside from the derelict one in…was it Mass Effect 3? I think it was. Maybe it was Mass Effect 2, I can't remember. But still…boarding a ship that's under fire by an entire Alliance fleet? I somehow don't see that as being a very good idea. And then the solution fortunately presents itself.

"That's suicide. We'd never get off the ship before the Alliance blasts it to pieces," Garrus adds his two cents. "And there's no guarantee that we'd even know what to sabotage aboard that ship. What if we cut power to the relay, is that possible?"

He looks at me and Tali as he's asking that, and at that moment, I think I could kiss him, because that damn thought nagging at the back of my mind finally resolves itself. The way Shepard turned off power the first time to prevent the closing of the arms. There's got to be a way to do that again, nevermind the fact that the power station she used to do it is probably overrun with geth now.

"To find out where to route and block the power distribution nodes, we'd need to actually let him open the relay," Tali comments quietly.

And that's the downside to that slightly-less-suicidal-but-still-insanely-dangerous plan. "How long till the relay's active, you think?" Shepard asks our quarian engineer.

"I really don't know…" she hums in thought. "It could be seconds, or it could be minutes. I have no idea how sophisticated the system is, and what kind of changes it would make to the Citadel's current layout."

I wonder if it's anything like the way it was with the Crucible…it makes sense, use the giant-ass relay in the Citadel to distribute the logic-defying Reaper-killing wave throughout known space and into their own. Of course, judging the passing of time based on a cutscene alone is probably not the best way to do things, but at this point, it's the best bet we're going to get. "I'd say maybe three minutes. Four if we're lucky, but no more," I say, drawing everyone's attention to me.

Yeah, I really should learn when to keep my mouth shut. Shepard and Kirrahe are looking at me suspiciously. I just nonchalantly wave my busted arm at them. "Had a run-in with Saren. _Sovereign_ did some nasty shit where he possessed him and we had a little tussle."

"And he…explained this to you?" Shepard asks slowly, deliberately, almost as if giving me time to think if I really want to answer that.

"I…inferred. Our resident Reaper isn't all that happy with me right now."

"What about Arterius?" Garrus asks curiously.

I can't help but wince at that. "Saren was pretty much gone by the time I got there. _Sovereign_ did more than indoctrinate him, he pretty much took him over. Saren Arterius is dead."

"How did you even find him? I thought you were supposed to be checked in at Huerta Memorial." That's Kaidan from the side. He seems more curious than suspicious, really, which I'm thankful for, because I don't think I can handle more than Shepard and Kirrahe at the same time.

"I was talking to Admiral Kohaku when the _Normandy_ arrived in-system. I figured that _Sovereign_ would be making his move soon," I explain carefully, trying to decide which parts to leave out. "And the geth attack pretty much made that thinking kind of moot. I figured that the only reason _Sovereign_ would be indoctrinating a spectre, of all people, would be to have access to otherwise restricted areas. I mean, why not someone else, why not a businessman with enough money and power to finance their own private war? Call it a hunch, but I figured I'd head for the Council chambers. Guess I was right, because I found him there, huddled over a console that I'm pretty sure wasn't supposed to be there."

Not to mention the fact that revealing that _Sovereign_ pretty much managed to manipulate me into coming there, if my suspicions are correct, is probably going to end up with me getting shot and then put into a psych ward.

"Most interesting. Suggest that galaxy has been under Reaper observation for some time," Kirrahe muses in that short, clipped, perpetually hasty speech that seems inherent to all salarians. "Reaper access to the Citadel limited. Strange, considering AI nature. Prothean sabotage indicates that Reaper must have a direct interface to Citadel computer systems. Indicates large degree of familiarity with Citadel construction. Conclusion: Reapers built the Citadel?"

"Maybe," I tell him, not quite willing to admit to everyone that he's pretty much hit the nail on the head with that. "But we've got a more pressing concern. The fact is that I don't think what Joker and I did stopped _Sovereign_ for long, otherwise he wouldn't be here still. But I think that he still needs boots on the ground. If he could remotely unlock and activate the relay, he would've done so by now."

"There'll be time for explanations later," Shepard announces, but her look, which I'm becoming very, _very_ familiar with, is telling me that there'll be explanations to be had. Hooo boy. "Where do you think the best place is to access the power grid?" she asks Tali.

"Presidium. It's the most central, most logical choice."

"Commander?" Joker's voice comes from the cockpit. "You're not going to like this. Picking up a crazy power surge from the Citadel. I don't know where all that power's coming from, but it's getting ready for something big."

The Commander looks at all of us in turn, and everyone here knows what that means. _Sovereign_ is opening the relay. "Joker, take us down."

"Yes, Commander."

T

The _Normandy_ dropping the ground team off is a relatively quiet affair. Mostly because all of the opposition on the ground in the LZ that Joker picked out was blasted to pieces by the frigate's weapons before he even brought her in for approach, covering the much smaller _Kodiak_ shuttlecraft. The battle overhead is still going strong, and I think _Sovereign_ must have gotten his second wind or something, because suddenly he's back in the fight, cutting ships out of the sky. The geth, too, have turned almost fanatical in their tactics, with frigates hurling themselves in the way of Alliance dreadnought firing solutions, intercepting slugs that were aimed at the Reaper.

They're losing this battle, and they know it. And they're still determined to drag it on as long as possible and cause as many casualties as possible.

Dammit.

Shepard and her ground squad are already suited up and on the main cargo ramp of the _Kodiak_, ready to jump out while I'm back in CIC, standing over the war table. In all honesty, I'm not too upset about not going with them, because I've done all I can. Besides, I wouldn't be any use, anyway, in the state I'm in. So I'm up here, trying to coordinate between them, Joker, and whatever frigate squadrons the _Normandy_ is currently assigned to.

I'm listening to the ground team's chatter with one ear, while keeping the rest of my attention on the tactical display. The Alliance fleet has already taken some major losses, and my plan of trying to save the Fifth from taking the kind of casualties it did in canon has already gone out the window. _Sovereign_'s opening salvo made sure of that. If anything, the Fifth probably has taken _more_ losses till now than it ever did in Mass Effect 1.

Joker takes the _Normandy_ back up and into the fray, swinging her this way and that to avoid enemy fire while the gunners open up, leaving flaming wreckage in their wake. Standing up here, looking over the tactical display and watching ships and crews die is a whole other kind of helplessness. It's not like I can take the helm from Joker or help him fly somehow, or take control of a weapons emplacement.

All I can do is watch as the fleet fights a desperate battle and listen to the ground team's progress. I urge them on silently as they enter the power distribution facility for the second time that day amidst the gunfire from opposing geth on the ground. Joker abruptly puts the ship into a steep dive, pulling her up sharply as he releases a pair of torpedos that slag a squad of geth and an armature that were making their way towards Shepard's position.

Shepard and her squad made it into the power station, and then I lose visual on them. The only way to track them now is by their locator beacons on the wireframe schematic on the war table. Dammit. Someone shoves their way past me with an almost annoyed grunt, and from the corner of my eye I can tell that XO Pressly isn't all that happy with our current operations. I never really interacted with the man much, mostly because he handles the second shift, and I'm either always on first or third. Shepard's and Kaidan's.

He's someone else who's going to die with the _Normandy_ over some goddamned out-of-the-way ice planet. Fifteen of her crew, if I remember right, go down with the ship over Alchera. Fifteen men and women who don't deserve to die, who could've turned the tide of the war later on. And unlike the nameless, faceless myriad of casualties of later battles, these are men and women I know, that I've talked to, whose faces I know and whose voices I've heard. But without their deaths, without the destruction of the SR-1, will Cerberus even build the SR-2? Will they sink the resources into the bigger, better ship that we'll need to defeat the Collectors? Will they invest in Project Lazarus? And if they don't, will the _Normandy_ get destroyed at a later date, this time without hope of reconstruction, will Shepard die without hope of returning from the dead?

Or, if they do, will it be too late, then?

Shit.

That doesn't make it any easier to make that call.

"We're in," Shepard's voice announces over the radio.

"Let's hope he actually does try and do something, otherwise we're down here for nothing," Garrus adds dryly.

Shepard's clear, high-pitched laugh is a distinct contrast to the turian's grim demeanor. "Oh, just admit you're having fun, Vakarian. You're missing a hell of a party down here, Grayson," she adds towards me.

"Eyes forward, Commander," I counter gently, drawing a giggle from Tali and a deep chuckle from Garrus and Wrex. "How's things looking down there?"

There's a brief burst of gunfire over the open comm line before the Commander replies. "Nothing we can't handle. How long do we have?"

"I have no idea, Commander, but you'd best pick up the pace. Power surge just keeps right on building. And that damn Reaper is still in the air cutting our ships to pieces."

"Tough ship."

"No kidding." It's not exactly a comforting thought. I don't recall _Sovereign_ being this tough in the game, but then again, you had very little to do with the space battle in Mass Effect, and with all the cutscenes, it's really hard to judge the passing of time and figure out how long they were shelling him for before he finally went boom. Either way, it's not a good feeling to know that _anything_ can last this long under fire from what amounts to three full sector fleets.

That's right.

_Three_ sector fleets.

In addition to the Citadel Fleet and Hackett's Fifth, it turns out that the good old Admiral, after consulting with Anderson and Kohaku, decided to clue in Admiral Cole of the First, also stationed at Arcturus. The result? Operation Raptor Talon, the first ever coordinated anti-Reaper fleet action in the known galaxy, using the tactical data I gave Kahoku to determine firing solutions and combat disciplines specifically targeted to take it out.

The only problem with that is that _Sovereign_ is now using the geth ships as shields. It's a good sign, for sure, because he knows that he won't last long under direct bombardment, but there's just _so many_ geth ships. At least that means that the geth themselves won't be inflicting as many casualties as they would otherwise. Granted, he probably would've gone down faster if Anderson had made the call to focus all fire on him from the moment the fleets arrived, but with the squadrons split off to cover the _Destiny Ascension_, it's taken a little longer. Not much, mind you, only a few minutes.

But in a battle like this, minutes can be small eternitites, and a few minutes can drag on forever as ships and crews fight and die.

The minutes pass, and Shepard's progress is, well, typical Shepard: fast, furious, and leaving a trail of destruction behind her. Despite her best efforts, though, before her squad ever makes it to their goal, Hackett's voice comes over the fleet comm line.

"All vessels, clear the airspace around the primary target. Repeat, all vessels clear a space around the primary target-"

Seconds later, _Sovereign_'s image on the war table flickers and disappears, followed by a cascade of light and triumphant shouts over the radio. Joker spins the _Normandy_ through the debris and back down towards the Citadel, even before Shepard chimes in over the comm.

"Citadel controls still unresponsive," an asari operator from the _Destiny Ascension_ reports. "Power buildup reaching critical."

"Come on, Shepard," I mutter under my breath, my right hand clenching around the railing at the edge of the war table. "Come on, come on."

The seconds tick away as reports trickle in. The geth fleet is in disarray, _Sovereign_'s wreckage has, for the most part, missed the Citadel. And amidst it all there's this little power indicator on the Presidium ring that we now know is the central hub for the darkspace relay that just keeps on climbing and climbing.

"We're not going to get it shut down in time," Shepard finally reports. "There's no way to bleed that much power into auxiliary systems."

There's a long silence, before Tali chimes in, her voice quiet and trembling. "We could…we could surge it. It would blow out the relay."

"And most of the Presidium," Garrus adds. "But she's right, it's our best bet."

"Commander, the relay's activating."

There's nothing I can do but stand here and listen as the fate of the galaxy is being decided by these few people. And it only bothers me a little, because I know they're the best hope we have. And yet I can't help but think that most of this fucked up situation is because of me. You don't have to be a genius to figure out what happens when you overload the entire habitat with that much energy. You can pretty much kiss the Presidium bye-bye, along with everyone who's left in it.

"Do it."

"Commander-"

"Do it!"

There's no reply as Tali works her magic, racing against the clock as the darkspace relay gatheres streams of power from every corner of the Citadel to wake from its long slumber. And then…

"Done. We should leave."

"On my way, Commander."

Seconds later explosions start wracking the Presidium, transformers and power distribution nodes overcharging with crackling arcs of electricity as the surge protectors fail one at a time, the tremendous amount of energy absorbed only by the very hull of the Citadel itself, shorting out every bit of circuitry in its way. But it's not content to stop there. As Tali's mod bleeds all of the power back into the darkspace relay, surging into the delicate mechanics that warp space and time, the relay overloads, cycling faster and faster until finally, with one last echoing crack, the hub of the relay explodes.

And by the time the fireworks display is over, the Presidium ring that once capped the five arms of the Citadel is floating almost serenely in space, the broken and twisted parts of the ring trailing debris like a severed limb trails drops of blood.

"How…how many?" Shepard asks, her voice trembling ever so slightly.

I don't even have to guess at what she's asking. "Thirty-two hundred," I tell her quietly.

Thirty-two hundred people who were scattered around the Presidium at the time she initiated the overload. It's a sign of the difficult choices that are yet to come, I suppose, but that doesn't make it any easier. As tough as the Commander may be, even I can tell this took its toll on her. She'll never admit it, of course, never show it for fear of displaying weakness, but I can tell it'll be nagging at the back of her mind for a long time to come.

Perhaps even for the rest of her life.

I bury my head into my one good hand and sink down into a nearby chair. This is utterly fucked up. And it's all my fault.

Well, Q _did_ warn me.

Hackett's voice is no less grave when he makes his presence known over the radio. "Come on home, Commander." He sighs briefly. "This is going to take a lot of work to clean up…and to explain. But it can wait, for now."

"Aye, Admiral."

Staring at the war table for a moment longer, just to make sure my mind isn't playing tricks on me and _Sovereign_ isn't, like, going to piece himself back together, I let out a quiet sigh. There's still a nagging feeling that this isn't quite over, that I missed something, but it's quelled beneath a growing feeling of relief that it's finally over. Saren's dead, the geth are routed, and _Sovereign_ is destroyed. That's got to be it, right?

Except that Reapers never do anything without a reason. They never do anything without a plan, and _Sovereign_ is no exception. They're not religious fanatics that stay and fight to the death, not if there's an alternative, a backup plan to enact. I was so convinced that _Sovereign_ had us backed into a corner, that he had us dancing to his tune and doing what he wanted us to that this…complete lack of everything just catches me by surprise. I don't know what to make of it. Part of me is highly suspicious, perhaps I missed something, or there's something I'm not seeing, but for the life of me, I can't imagine how _Sovereign_ could do anything from beyond the grave. It's just not possible. He's destroyed and Saren's gone.

The end. Finis.

Right?

_Right_?

With a weary sigh I turn around and had for the cargo ramp. No point in stressing over it now. I'm tired, hurting, and on meds, although the stuff Chakwas gave me is starting to wear off. This isn't exactly the best time or state to be in to think about convoluted Reaper contingencies. Maybe after I've gotten some sleep, or something. Maybe I should talk it over with Shepard or Miranda, too, get a second opinion, a fresh perspective.

Wait. Miranda.

Shit.

I toggle my omni-tool's comm over to her private frequency, my fingers trembling with urgency, and back into a little nook on the _Normandy_'s flight deck. "Miranda? Come in, Miranda." _Please be alive, please be alive_.

Finally, after a few agonizing seconds, her voice responds, sounding a little tired but otherwise none the worse for wear. "You've got a _lot_ of explaining to do."

I can't help the relieved chuckle that bubbles out of my throat. "Don't worry. It's a hell of a story."

"I can imagine. Are you hurt?"

"No worse than usual. You?"

"I'm fine. Are you aboard the _Normandy_?"

"Yeah." I look up as the cargo ramp begins to lower. "I've got to go, Shepard's gonna want a debrief. Meet you later?"

"I'll send you a meeting place later. I'm not sure if our place here is still intact." Miranda coughs a little, which has me worried. Miss Genetically Perfect _doesn't_ cough.

"You sure you're ok?"

"Yes. I'll be in touch."

"All right."

"Patrick?" she hesitates a little. "I'm glad you're alright."

Before I can reply, she terminates the connection. Talk about _awkward_. But she's alive, that's all that matters. I have no idea if she was even on the Citadel or involved in the fighting in any way during the game, and it would've been…I don't even want to think about her possibly dying during Saren's invasion as a result of my actions. Tipping my head back against the bulkhead I let out a brief sigh while the pilot sets the shuttle down, and it isn't long before I hear the clang of boots on the _Normandy_'s deck grating. I push off from my little cubbyhole, I walk over to the ground team with something between a relieved smile and a grimace.

I wave them over. "Commander?"

"Grayson. Looks like you were wrong, for a change," Shepard says, her red hair plastered to a sweaty forehead. "I'm starting to think maybe you're right about that vacation."

"Is our resident N7 complaining about _too much_ action?" I can't resist to rib, although the humor is a little forced. "Admiral Hackett and Captain Anderson want to talk to you in CIC."

"Lead the way. The rest of you…good job. Take a break, I'll let you know when we'll debrief." Shepard nods at me to go on ahead as the deck plating shudders and Joker lifts the ship back up into the air.

"Shepard…"

The quiet voice is surprisingly loud in the frigate's cargo hold, causing all of us to turn around to the portside hatch that leads deeper into the ship, and my jaw drops open. What the fuck…

Before any of us can utter a word, though, the figure in the hatch shudders, and an echoing mechanical voice announces,

"_Assuming direct control_."


	34. Chapter 34

**Author's Note: **Well, here's the official end to Mass Effect 1. I hope you've enjoyed the ride so far...I'm currently working on extending the story into the time between ME 1 and 2, and depending on how things go, will hope to cover the entire triology.

**Chapter Thirty-Four**

Before any of us can react, a brilliant golden particle beam barrels past me, slamming into Wrex and sending him tumbling through the cargo bay, his armor burned to a slag. There's no time to worry about him, no time to think about the circumstances other than a brief fraction of a second dedicated to _oh, fuck_.

Kaidan and Liara's biotics flare to life, bombarding the interloper wearing the body of Ashley Williams with spheres of energy while Garrus and Tali dive for cover. I know from personal, first-hand experience that cover isn't going to do us a lick of good against _that_ and just start running, cursing myself for forgetting to bring a weapon and not reloading my force lance. Just like with Saren, _Sovereign_ just shakes off everything that's thrown at him and continues to stalk forward, apparently skipping the entirety of foreplay and going straight for the glowing-floating impression of a freakin' super saiyan from the get-go.

"Alenko! Gun!" I shout as I make a break for the other side of the cargo bay. The Staff Lieutenant tosses me his sidearm almost immediately. In my panicked, light-headed state I almost fail to catch it and fumble for a second before getting a good grip on the pistol and charging it.

But then, like Garrus and Tali, I freeze, unable to pull the trigger.

I just can't. Even though I know that it's _Sovereign_, I can't shoot Ashley. Unlike Saren she's not been reaperfied at all. No implants, no weird semi-organic growths, nothing. Just Ash, in her fatigues.

Only, like, glowing, floating, and throwing fireballs.

I look over at the turian who shrugs at me helplessly, a surprisingly human expression. Shaking myself out of my reverie I keep moving, just running from place to place to not give _Sovereign_ a clear shot. The rest of the squad have picked up on it and are on the move, themselves. The only problem is that while the _Normandy_'s cargo bay is quite large, half of it is taken up by a _Kodiak_.

That and there's seven of us trying to run around without overlapping and giving him a target of opportunity. This can't go on forever. Sooner or later someone will slip up and end up dead. Goddamn it, I can't help but think as I crouch behind the shuttle, _why_ didn't I expect one last fuck-you from the Reapers?

And then it happens, though through no fault of ours as _Sovereign_ Charges forward, straight towards Shepard. Ashley's body crashes into the Commander, but instead of reaching for the kill, _Sovereign_ reaches for her omni-tool. What the-

We only have a split second to realize what's going on, and between all of us, probably only Shepard and I fully understand what he's trying to do. The lightest of touches is enough for the Reaper – or what's left of him in Ashley's body, anyway – to interface with the omni-tool, breach its security, and open the data files Vigil copied over for Shepard.

The Commander's eyes meet mine, and we both know there's no way to stop it now as _Sovereign_ uses the protheans' own override codes and the _Normandy_'s communications array to remotely activate the darkspace relay below us again. My pistol comes up, ready to take aim at the back of Ashley's head, but I know it won't be enough. It won't be in time. All the Reaper needs is a split second.

But Shepard apparently is determined to not let him have it, because she grabs on to Ashley's body, twists around, and _Charges_ out the open cargo bay door, the two of them dropping down towards the wards below even as Joker pulls the frigate up.

I reach for my radio. "Take her down, Joker, we've got an emergency!"

All of us get to our feet as the pilot doesn't even question my panicked order and takes the _Normandy_ back down to the surface in a steep dive that almost sends us off our feet. When we reach the edge of the cargo ramp, none of us can make out anything. Shepard probably already hit the ground, and there's too much rubble and we're too high up to see anything.

Shit, shit shit _shit_.

T

Sifting through all the rubble to find the Commander's locator beacon is no easy task. Since I have no armor and in my current condition, there's no way Chakwas would even let me off the ship, let alone participate in a search-and-rescue operation. With all the damage the Citadel's taken, the beacon's location is a little fuzzy, but as the search pairs continue to make their way through it becomes apparent that while the Presidium is pretty much gone, the actual damage to the rest of the wards is limited.

All of us are worried. The fact that Shepard hasn't checked in through the radio is worrying, and although this time there wasn't a giant piece of Reaper that fell on her, it was probably even worse with her fall. You can survive the crash of a giant piece of debris by being lucky and being in the right place. A fall from heaven knows how far up?

Not so much.

"Vector, signal's sporadic, fifty meters to your two. Be advised, sensors indicate a lot of debris in that area, how copy?"

"Good copy, _Normandy_. We'll check it out."

"Do you think she survived?" Joker asks from next to me. I'm sitting down behind the pilot's station in the cockpit, using one of the auxiliary consoles to coordinate the search effort. The ship is hovering almost stationary, sweeping the area right around Shepard's locator beacon with its sensors. The pilot makes no move to turn around, no move at all, in fact. He's not even flying the ship, having engaged her thrusters in hover mode a while ago as he just stares out of the cockpit windows.

"Something tells me she did," I tell him, wishing I felt as confident as I sounded. She has to. Mass Effect without Shepard is…well, it doesn't bear thinking about.

I can't get over the fact that _Sovereign_ had one last trick up his sleeve, but it makes me wonder _why_ he did it. The darkspace relay was already blown, and even if it wasn't, the Citadel is in no condition to provide the kind of power output required to activate it. Why come at us _now_? Just to take out Shepard? To get his hands on the prothean files in her omni-tool?

It seems very contrived, very…top layer. There's got to be more behind it.

But I'll be damned if I can think of a reason.

That's been happening a lot, lately. I _really_ need to get together with either Shepard or Miranda to bounce my thoughts off them. It's another thing I miss in my relationship with Miranda. You don't really realize how dependent you are on someone else, not just for company, but also for a second opinion, a different perspective. Being by yourself for long periods of time tends to cause you to lose perspective. I should know, it happened to me in college.

My attention drifts back to the map on the screen. "You should be right on top of her, Vector. Akameka and Circuit are on their way."

"Copy that," Garrus confirms as he and Wrex start digging. I watch idly as Kaidan and Tali's signals close in and converge. Andersons's not too far away, either, and with a brief word into the radio, I alert him to their progress.

It's a tense few minutes, broken up only by Garrus's commentary on how bad the destruction is down there. Atmosphere is still intact, and, for the most part, the Presidium ring is still spaceworthy. The damage, as he likes to put it, is mostly superficial. Superficial as in _not completely blown to pieces_. There's a lot of hull breaches for sure, some sections even broke up so badly that they're almost free-floating.

But you've got to give the Reapers credit, they built the station tough, and somehow while mangled, most of the Presidium is still capable of supporting life. It'll be a relief to Shepard, especially because SAR teams from the First and Fifth are still finding survivors down there. The relay's implosion really did the majority of the damage, which fortunately limited it to the inner parts of the Presidium ring. In many ways, it was a hell of a lot worse than it looked.

But there's still hundreds of people unaccounted for that we suspect were blown out the hull breaches or killed by the overload. Electrocuted, vaporized, we don't know.

Chances are, we never will.

And now that there's very little for me to do, the obligatory _what ifs_ have begun as my mind starts running in circles around recent events. What if I'd done something differently? What if I'd just listened to Q and just followed the damn plot of the game?

Then again, what ifs never got anyone very far, but in my exhausted state, I can't help but let my mind wander. It's not a pleasant experience, let me tell you. Okay, the good news, focus on the good news.

The Council is safe, we prevented a Reaper invasion, and _Sovereign_ went boom. In addition to that, the Alliance is taking the Reaper threat seriously, Admirals Hackett and Cole have organized a blockade around the Citadel to prevent anyone – mostly Cerberus – from stealing what's left of _Sovereign_, and we have that information recovered from Vendetta, and, with any luck, Vigil.

And they found Admiral Kohaku and his command staff. The _Valor_ took a bad hit that almost tore the ship in half from _Sovereign_'s main cannon, but most of the crew survived in the derelict. One of the turian cruisers found them when they managed to restore enough power for a short-range emergency beacon. There's bad news, of course. The Citadel Fleet is in tatters, with more than sixty percent casualties in the case of some squadrons. Over half the ships of the fleet will require major drydock time to be spaceworthy again. Almost a quarter of the ships are completely destroyed, with not a trace of them to be found other than the clouds of space debris now drifting lazily around the Citadel like discarded party favors. Almost as many have been damaged so badly that they'll never fly again, their space frames cracked, crushed, and broken beyond anyone's ability to repair.

The Alliance fleets have fared a little better by virtue of the majority of them arriving late to the fight when _Sovereign_ was unable to engage them effectively. Still, Alliance losses are staggering, mostly from the Reaper's opening salvo that took out a good thirty or so ships of the task force sent by Hackett to help bolster the Citadel's defenses initially. The cleanup is estimated to take at least another week, and it'll be longer still before any kind of normality can return to the Citadel itself. The humans, I'm sure, will do as we've always done. Adapt, rebuild, and overcome.

That's not what has me worried for the future.

No, if anything this has strengthened humanity's position among the Council races. It's not every day that a nation so young has come to the rescue of so many. Even the Council has to admit that – and they have, publicly thanking the Alliance for their aid and service. Yes, even that stuck-up turian Councillor Sparatus swallowed his pride and acknowledged that the turian security forces are likely no longer sufficient to ensure galactic peace and stability, and that letting the Alliance take part of that burden would be a good idea.

And even the Council can't deny that the destruction of the Presidium was necessary.

"I think we've got her. _Normandy_, do you read?"

"Loud and clear, Vector," I reply, sitting up and hunched back over the display the moment Garrus's voice comes over the radio. "Can you confirm, over?"

There's a bit of shuffling, some grunting from Wrex, and then the turian comes back on the line. "Confirmed, it's her."

My fingers are already dancing over the console, transmitting their coordinates to the medical shuttles that are standing by. "Hold on, Vector, medevacs are on the way."

"Copy, _Normandy_." A little more shuffling and digging.

"She's weak, but stable," Kaidan's voice announces a minute later.

I let out a sigh of relief and look over at Joker, who has a weak grin plastered across his usually expressionless face. "That's…that's great, Akameka. What about Williams?"

"Negative on her yet. We'll keep looking."

"Copy." None of us know what to make of the situation. On a rational level, all of us know that Ashley wasn't exactly herself when she tried to shoot the Commander and especially when she pulled that floor show in the cargo bay. The _Normandy_ crewman who was guarding her in the brig fortunately was away at battle stations, otherwise he might've been killed by _Sovereign_. The poor bastard turned white as a sheet when he realized that. We still don't know yet how or where Ash came in contact with Reaper tech or got indoctrinated.

But I'm willing to put money on Tim and Miranda knowing, considering the fact that Ash was at a Cerberus base on Binthu. Something else to add to the tally of things to wring out of Tim when the time comes. Cerberus. There's a whole other can of worms that I have to figure out what to do with. I've got to stop Tim from going bat-shit like he did in the canon games, because he was almost more dangerous than goddamn _Harbinger_. But at the same time I need Cerberus to be strong. I just need them to be on the right friggin' side. I need them to keep the galaxy on its toes until the Reapers try again, and then I need them to fight for the right side this time around.

That's going to be fun to figure out.

And as cruel as it sounds, maybe it's better if Ash isn't found, or is dead. As much as they'll believe me about indoctrination and the Reapers by now, I doubt it'll make much of a difference when it comes to treason and an assassination attempt on your commanding officer. _Two_ assassination attempts, actually. It'd probably destroy her, even if she isn't executed or jailed for life for it.

Then there's me. That's twice _Sovereign_ has messed with my head. I don't know how he got in, or how I'm not even indoctrinated yet – or if I _am_ – but I'm going to find out. I have to, if I'm to ever have any peace at all. I can't go around second-guessing my own motives all the time, especially when the real action rolls around. And if it turns out I'm indoctrinated after all…well, let's just say I'll be the first to put the gun in Miranda's hand. Or Shepard's.

Joker's voice shakes me out of my reverie. "Medevac shuttles are on the way back. They'll be here in a minute."

"All right." I get up and stretch my limbs, then head for the back of the deck. "I'll let Chakwas know to prep."

T

They pinned medals on us and had Shepard give a speech, and yes, there was cake. A lot of it, even dextro-compatible cake, for Garrus and Tali. The Alliance was heralded for being the new good Samaritan on the block, the politicians tried to capitalize on the situation by making all sorts of announcements and promises for their re-election campaigns, and the military personnel just came for the free food.

If this wasn't the Mass Effect universe and they weren't soldiers, I would almost think I was back in college.

Shepard, in typical fashion, didn't let a little thing like a thirty-story drop out of a spaceship bother her for long. I don't know what kind of fancy biotics she pulled, or if she got lucky, or if she's just _that stubborn_, but she was hopping out of bed and driving us all crazy after two days in med bay. Including Chakwas, by the way, whose near-inexhaustible patience almost ran out. The Alliance had ground forces that helped round up the last of the geth and the corps of engineers are working around the clock on getting power restored and habitats repaired so that people can return to some semblance of their regular lives.

The attempts to sweep what happened under the carpet have already begun, by the way. The turians are embarrassed that not only was it one of them that ran amok and did all this, but also that their defenses were inadequate to deal with the threat. The salarians are yelling at their STG for not warning them of the severity of the threat and providing better intelligence. And the asari? You'd think as the eldest and most advanced race they'd be above pointing fingers and playing politics, right?

Wrong. If anything, the asari are the _worst_ of the lot.

I can understand the turian and salarian politics. They even make sense, to a point, because they're both arguing – and are being argued _at_ - for better security, better intelligence, and, to be fair, both the turian military and the salarian STG failed spectacularly when it came to taking Saren and the geth seriously. But the asari almost act as if humans are a danger to the galaxy on the scale of the Reapers themselves.

Where the salarian and even the turian councilor have argued for humanity to be granted a place on the Council, with its new role as the other large galactic peacekeeping and security force next to the turians, the asari have methodically vetoed any such motion. To the point where at one session, the asari councilor actually _filibustered_ the damn Council hearing. Yeah, that's right.

Filibustered.

And she sounded almost insulted at the suggestion that, woe befall me, humans be placed on equal terms to the asari. Like they did the galaxy a favor even just _tolerating _us. It's not all of the asari, mind you. Most of them are either indifferent or, like those with the defense force and on the Citadel, actually are in humanity's corner.

But the politicians? Well, the ones trying to gain political capital from this mess are doing their darndest to make it seem like this was all a ploy by humanity to gain access into their midst. Which is utterly preposterous. Personally I think what has the asari councillor's panties in a bunch is the fact that not only was humanity _right_ in their warning, not only did Alliance intelligence trump the STG's, and the Alliance fleet did what the turians could not, but it was also the Alliance that discovered not one, but _two_ prothean VIs.

One of which was theirs. Oh, officially the little incident on Thessia was just a random act of terrorist violence. But I know that their politicians suspect that we know. That we know that they've kept a prothean archive all to themselves for centuries, that the only reason they're now the de facto leaders of the galaxy is because they've hoarded it all and refused to share it, even when the galaxy was at its darkest during the Rachni Wars and the krogan rebellion. And they're afraid that we'll let the galaxy know.

And they're also afraid that now we'll catch up to them. They've already seen the Alliance grow to a force to rival the turians and salarians within the span of a decade. What could humanity achieve with the knowledge of the protheans, with the guidance of the image of one of their most accomplished scientists in Vigil?

This is exactly the reason I hate politics. Logic goes right out the window, and most of the time it does more harm than good.

And they're trying to downplay the importance of the Reaper. It's sad to watch, really. Listening to them try and explain it all away, that the big giant warship that carved its way through all of their defenses wasn't actually that big a deal. It's stupid, because they're all contradicting each other while doing so. The turians are claiming that the Reaper was acting alone, that there is nothing more to be feared. The asari claim it was turian incompetence that let the geth and an inferior flagship get as far as they did.

The salarians are the only ones who acknowledge the grave threat the Citadel was under and the potential for future incidents. Part of that is actually thanks to Captain Kirrahe, whose cousin twice removed is apparently the brother-in-law of the daughter of the salarian councilor. Or whatever the salarian equivalent is. I wouldn't be surprised of Mordin already knows of the whole Reaper thing by now.

A little smile tugs at my lips at the thought of the salarian doctor. I always liked him in the games. So eager and almost childlike in his wonder at anything, that gentle manner, and yet so serious and focused at times. And I still laugh at his rendition of _A Scientist Salarian_. That one clip topped my YouTube playlist back tome.

Hanging on to that one funny, happy thought, I shore up my courage and ring the doorbell. Buzzer. Whatever.

A second later, the door slides open with a low hydraulic hiss, admitting me into the dimly lit ship's corridor. A few steps lead me to the crew quarters that are completely abandoned by now. It's not a big ship, about the size of the supply freighter we took to _Bastion_. But it's large enough, especially since there's only the two of us aboard right now.

Passing by the crew quarters I head for the only other place she could be. Stepping through the hatch, I do, indeed, find her standing behind the pilot's chair, leaning against it almost heavily, as if she's tired, and staring out into the stars. The lights are off, the ship is powered down. Not even the emergency lights are on, casting the entire cabin in shadows, with the only illumination coming from the glittering dots on the other side of the viewport.

"Miranda?"

"You made it," she says quietly.

"Yeah."

She makes no move to turn around, and I lean against the hatch. I'm not really sure where to start, where we're even left after all that's happened. It seems like ages ago that she came to see me in the hospital when it really was what, three, four days ago? No more than that. I've lost all sense of time, the days blurring together after _Sovereign_'s attack. And it wasn't long before _that_ that we were sitting together in her kitchen, drinking tea or coffee and talking about mundane things. Joking. Laughing.

Before Thessia.

Was that really only a month or so ago? Not even that long, I reckon. Before things went to hell in a handbasket. And now here we are, in some ways worse than we were at the beginning. How's that song put it so nicely?

_We were strangers, starting out on our journey, never dreaming what we'd have to go through…now here we are, and I'm suddenly standing at the beginning with you_. It's pretty appropriate, now that I think about it. We're back to square one.

Well, not quite, but you get the idea.

That sense of comfort, of familiarity, of easy cameradie that we had…it's gone. Maybe not so much gone as _eroded_. Battered. Bruised. Beaten, but not dead. Not totally gone, and I'm clinging to that one thought to keep myself from hyperventilating and focus my thoughts. This is _Miranda_. She was…_is_ a friend, despite it all. And despite everything, we're in this mess together, so suck it up and sort things out with her, because you _need_ her. And more importantly, she deserves it.

Easier said than done when you've managed to land in one of two places with all the women in your life. The proverbial friend zone, or the _she-just-calls-you-when-she-wants-or-needs-something-done_-zone. It doesn't exactly give you a lot of confidence when talking to the fairer gender. It's not like I'm one of those smooth-talking Bond types who can charm a lady with just a smile and a bat of an eye. Which is probably a good thing, because to this day I wonder how the hell James Bond ever gets _anything_ done.

Although that Moonraker thing looked pretty interesting…I digress. Focus. Miranda.

I open my mouth, trying to form, you know, _words_, but nothing really springs to mind. Not even spontaneously. There's nothing as I struggle with what I _want_ to say and how to say it. I'm not even sure of what I want to tell her. Sorry for flipping out on you? Because I'm not. I told you so? No, not that, either.

When it comes down to it, I'm really just sorry that I pushed her so hard without giving her anything in return. Not that it would've done me any good, just like Q warned me, but there's always the feeling that I could've said or done something, something _more_. That I wanted, needed her trust, and gave her very little reason to trust me in return. At the end of the day, I almost practically blackmailed her into letting me into Cerberus and helping me, with the threat of revealing Cerberus intel to the Alliance.

Latching on to that like a drowning man to a lifeline, I suddenly know…not what to _say_, per se, but at least where to start.

"I'm sorry," I blurt out at the exact same time she does. She turns around and moves to try again, but I hold up my hand to forestall her. I've got to say this, before I lose what little courage I had shored up.

"I'm sorry," I begin anew, moving to stand in front of her. "I'm sorry that I pushed, I'm sorry I gave you so very little reason to trust me when I asked so much in return. I'm sorry about the circumstances that threw us together, and I'm sorry that there's not a lot I can do about it." With each word, a little weight lifts off my chest until I can look her in the eyes. "Above all, though, I'm sorry I expected so much without giving you anything. You, more than anyone I know here, deserve _more_."

"You were right," she replies quietly, letting out a long sigh and tilting her head back a little. "About Cerberus. About the Illusive Man. I looked into some of our case files – the classified ones. And then there's…Binthu."

Even in the dim light I can see the wry smirk that's gracing her lips. "Don't tell me that wasn't you there," she admonishes me lightly, "because I know you better than that."

"That obvious, huh?"

"Please. You leave on _personal business_ and two days later three of our facilities in a remote location go up in smoke, with Alliance warships and personnel swarming the area? Knowing what I do about you, it was the logical conclusion." Miranda shoots me a lopsided grin. "That, and you're a lousy liar."

"Yeah, well…" I trail off, not quite sure what to say. Then, it suddenly hits me. With a grin, I poke her in the shoulder. "Nobody's perfect."

"Indeed."

"Besides, it's entirely your fault. I tbought you were supposed to train me better?"

She opens her mouth in protest before realizing I'm messing with her. A slow, matching grin spreads across her lips and she shrugs nonchalantly. "You're still alive, aren't you? I do the best I can with the material I'm given."

A little chuckle escapes me as I realize that's typical Miranda. Her humor is dry, witty, and subtle. A little spark of normality amidst the craziness of the last few weeks. So I let her have this one, not that I'm apt to actually win any of these contests of wit with her, anyway. And just like that, the ice is broken. "For what it's worth, Miranda…I do trust you. And you mean more to me than you can probably imagine, and I promise I'll do my best to not be such an asshole in the future. That is, of course, unless you'd like to put a bullet in me right now."

"That'd be a terrible waste of Cerberus resources. Besides, you still have valuable intelligence." She smirks evilly at me. "There's always time for that…later."

I shudder at that. "Please don't joke about that," I mutter, still thinking about how close Kai Leng came to disemboweling me on several occasions. "That crazy assassin of your boss's scares the crap outta me."

"You seem to be doing a pretty good job of getting yourself into life-or-death situations, yourself," she replies neutrally, and suddenly I'm not sure what she's thinking again. "I won't question how you knew what you did, but going after Arterius by yourself was stupid."

"I know." I shrug, unable to deny it, because she's right and I agree with her. "I just...I haven't got an excuse. He might've tried to fuck with my head again, but I can't be sure, and I should've known better, anyway, _especially_ because of what I know. The only thing I can say is...I wasn't sure who I could turn to." Another shrug accompanied by a bit of a wry smile. "It's not like I've got friends and allies lining up to help me take a shot at him."

Miranda just looks at me for a moment, siently. "I'm sorry," she says, and this time I hold my tongue as it's her turn to talk. You live with someone for long enough and you learn to read their body language, you know. It's strange. Miranda always seemed…tense, on edge. Always professional. Even during the couple of months she was training me when I first arrived, she rarely let down her guard. Even her sense of humor bespeaks her professionalism, because even while she's joking she's on guard, her mind quick and primed. Now, though, she seems…relaxed. It's a strange change for her.

It's different, but it's not necessarily bad. She looks…more like a woman now, and less like the untouchable, always aloof and in control Cerberus second-in-command. It makes her seem more human. I don't know exactly what it is, maybe it's the little slouch in her usually perfect posture, or the hint of genuine amusement in her eyes, or the way she's just standing here, in the dark, surrounded by an endless starfield.

"I'm sorry," she repeats. "When I heard about Binthu, when I saw the Alliance files on what they found down there…I wanted to believe it was an aberration. A mistake."

"It wasn't, was it?" I ask her gently, already knowing the answer to it.

"No," Miranda admits, and I can tell it's not easy for her. There's an ever-so slight tremble in her voice that's very out of place in her usually collected demeanor. She's good, very good, and anyone who didn't know her – and probably a lot of people who _do_ know her – would never have known it's there. "I didn't think…our _own people_…"

I don't really know the extent of what Cerberus was doing down there, but I do have my suspicions. Of course, it could all have been an experiment gone wrong, or something. No doubt that's what Tim's feeding to everyone else, but Miranda has access to the detailed case files. And I'm willing to bet a damn lot of money that it was a deliberate outbreak. Cerberus, of all people, doesn't make mistakes when it comes to security and containment. That it was Tim trying to see if he could somehow _make_ controllable humans the same way the Thorian did. It still makes me shudder to think about just _what_ had to have gone on down there. The image of half-human, half-creeper fused creatures is going to stick with me for a long, long time, and it's not a pleasant one, let me tell you. Just the _thought_ of what had to happen to those people in order to turn them into…whatever the hell you want to call what we found is disgusting.

It's inhumane bordering on the insane.

Hell, I'd expect more morals from the goddamn _Joker_. And not the Joker who's piloting the _Normandy_. It's a rather nasty departure from what Binthu was in the game, but not entirely unexpected, considering all the other shit that Tim is going to pull...or is in the process of pulling.

"I gave orders to shut down the Teltin facility," Miranda whispers, so low that I almost don't hear her. As it is, it causes me to lean forward a little. "While you were...out there, I looked into it. We started it with the best of intentions, of harnessing the human biotics potential, to create the perfect human biotic, to negate the side effects and reduce the neural impact of L2 implants. But what it's become is..."

"A Darwinian breeding program to see if they can create the perfect biotic. I wouldn't be surprised if the Illusive bastard thinks that being a psychopath somehow makes you a better biotic." I shrug at that a little. There's no denying that Jack is...well, more than a _little _off her rocker. Not that I blame her for that in the least, considering what went on in Pragia, but still...

Miranda, surprisingly, doesn't even question how I know anymore. Instead, she just nods and sighs. "It was worse than the old BAaT. The measures that were authorized without direct approval from me or the Illusive Man..."

"Oh, they were approved, all right," I can't help but snort in disgust. Figures Tim would play innocent till now. "Come on, you don't think they could requisition that many personnel, that many resources, without approval from your boss?"

"I...I find it hard to believe. But the alternative..."

"The alternative is that Cerberus is being led by a madman whose only goal is to play God and create a galaxy in his image." With yet another shrug I settle down against the co-pilot's seat. "Personally, I don't find that very hard to believe."

As soon as that sentence leaves my mouth, though, I clamp up, realizing the mistake I made. Sure, to _me_ it's obvious, but to Miranda? She owes the Illusive asshole a lot, at least that's what she believes. If only she knew that he was tracking her sister to have a bargaining chip in hand, and the deal he'll enter with her father eventually...but I'm getting ahead of myself again, aren't I? I'm pushing too hard, too fast, with things I _know_, but can't prove to her. And I know exactly what it must look like from her point of view. "Look," I try to backtrack gently, "I know it looks like I'm hurling unfounded accusations right now, and perhaps that's just my natural paranoia getting the better of me, but I know his type. I've seen it before. Good intentions or not, he's planning to take this to places humanity isn't ready for. Hell, if my worst predictions are actually right, then he could be leading humanity down a path to its destruction."

"How do you _know_?" Miranda asks quietly, her eyes boring into mine with that quiet determination that is so classically _her_. The same strength of will that broke her free from her father and made her Cerberus's number two. "How do you know these things? How can you be so...so _sure_?"

I open my mouth to answer, but this time, I manage to catch myself before giving her the obligatory _you wouldn't believe me if I told you_. Even if that's the case, she doesn't deserve that kind of generic cookie-cutter answer. But how do I explain this to her? I'm an engineer, I should be _good_ at this bullshitting thing, but this is one whole heap of a mess to bullshit my way through without telling her the truth. Of course, the truth is probably going to sound just as much like a load of bull to her. So I crack a crooked smile and shrug. "Would you believe me if I told you I'm psychic?"

"Not for a damn second." It's a serious answer, but I can hear a faint trace of humor in her tone. Good, that's good.

But how to tell her what she needs to know without sounding like a lunatic?

Maybe I don't have to _tell _her, it suddenly strikes me.

Maybe she just has to _see_.

Settling down into the co-pilot's chair, I gesture for her to do the same. "I can't explain it very well, Miranda, so instead, I'm going to show you something. Whatever you decide afterwards...well, I'll have to accept that. But it's too unbelievable for me to just tell you." Bringing up the navigational computer, I'm fully aware that this is a big risk. Revealing as much as I'm about to, to Cerberus's second-in-command no less, is dangerous to the extreme. What she does with this information is out of my hands once I tell her, and if she decides I'm a complete psycho or a security risk, or both...well, things could get real ugly, real fast.

But it's something I've got to do.

I'm just hoping that this time, my faith in her isn't misplaced.

The galaxy map flares to life in the dark cockpit, casting an eerie blue hue across the angular lines of the equipment as one after another the quadrant's major stars flicker into existence. "I'm hoping that...well, whatever you decide, you'll make the right choice. So...here goes."

I flick through the star clusters until I find what I'm looking for. Zooming in on a barren, volcanic wasteland of a world, I know immediately that she recognizes it from the slight widening of her eyes. "Nepheron. A completely out of the way planet in the Columbia system of the Voyager star cluster that has no other value than geological curiousities. And, of course, a Cerberus military installation that was coordinating the experiments conducted on Binthu."

Without giving her a chance to say anytthing, I zoom back out and slide the map over to the next location. "The Minos Wasteland. Gellix. A Cerberus weapons research facility, led by Doctor Brynn Cole." I move the map again.

"The _Barn_, along with Pragia, the second home of Project Phoenix." Again the map slides along. "Minuteman Station, Cerberus's premier prototype shipyard and R&D facility where, right now, Cerberus is reverse-engineering a stealth frigate similar to the _Normandy_." Another swipe, another station. "Atlas Station. Home to Cerberus virtual intelligence R&D."

I can tell her eyes flickering in between my commentary, her mouth working but no words are spoken as I bring up the next few locations. "Hermes, Prometheus, Vulcan. Cerberus's interfacing, software development, and human interface research facilities. All located on Aite."

And then I drop the big one.

"Horesehead Nebula. The red supergiant star Anadius. And in orbit around it..." I look over at Miranda, and for the first time, I see something reflected in her eyes that I have never seen there before, something so utterly out of place that it gives me pause.

Fear.

Complete, unadultered fear. Fear of just how much I know, of the damage I could do with it. Fear of...me? Perhaps.

I force myself to finish my little demonstration. "Cronos Station, Cerberus headquarters. The Illusive Man's private vacation resort from where he directs the fate of the galaxy."

But I'm not done yet. Not by a long shot. "Let me also give you a little preview of what's going to happen. You can check this, if you like, and I'll even write it down for you, but I'd suggest you don't mention anything and just wait and see if I'm right. In a couple of weeks, after Cerberus has salvaged all it can from _Sovereign_'s wreckage, your boss is going to start two research projects. One, based in Aite, will be code-named Project Overlord, aiming to take advantage of the geth's reverence for the Reapers and attempting to create an artificial intelligence guided by human intellect, effectively fusing a human into a VI." I pause briefly. "The second is Project Mia, with the objective to investigate the process of indoctrination and Reaper-husk communications. Eventually, probably sometime around 2185, the chief scientist on that project will get the heebie-jeebies and decide to call it quits."

"How..." Miranda mutters, and if I didn't know any better, I would almost think she'd _paled_.

"Then there's the Earth Defense Initiative. I know you recovered that rogue Alliance VI from Luna. Coupled with fragment's of _Sovereign_'s mainframe, it'll allow Cerberus to develop a fully functional, self-aware shackled VI to act as the new model stealth recon frigate's main cyberwarfare processor." And here comes the big one. "Also, later this year, in a few months, the _Normandy_ will be attacked by an unknown ship over Alchera. If nothing is done, the _Normandy_ will be destroyed with half her crew lost, including Commander Shepard. At that point, Cerberus will launch the Lazarus Project, with you in charge, to resurrect the Commander, as the Illusive Man will finally realize that she's humanity's best hope against the Reapers. Let me put it this way. Already you're thinking that _Shepard is a hero, a bloody icon...but she's just one woman. If we lose Shepard, humanity might well follow_. It'll be your task to see that we don't. Lazarus will be completed in 2185, coinciding with a large number of abductions from fringe colonies by the Collectors - yes, they're real. I'm hoping it won't come to that, but something tells me it might. And that's not all."

Not even close. The Collector base comes to mind. I shudder to even think of that place, and what'll happen there. In the game, that was the point where Miranda's loyalty first came into question...not to Shepard, or the Illusive Man, but to _herself_. What were her words again? _Having seen what has happened here, using anything from this base seems like a betrayal_. "When the Collector base is found, there'll be some horrible stuff going on there. People being liquefied, used as base component matter for them to build something. Something massive. An abomination. And I'll bet you that no matter how horrifying the things are that you'll see there...your boss will be wanting to study it, to use it. Do the ends really justify the means?"

I let that hang between us for a while before shutting down the navigational display. "I could name a lot of Cerberus operatives if I wanted," I add, "but I think you get the point."

"This is..."

"Unbelievable? Crazy? Insane?" I shrug and nod. "Yeah, it is. I can't explain it, and if I could, you probably wouldn't believe me, anyway. So there it is. I've told you what I know. Don't believe me if you will, I don't mind. All I'm asking is that you keep an open mind and watch out to see if I'm right. Just watch. Observe. And _think_. And then decide. That's all I'm asking."

Finally, Miranda looks up at me, an unreadable expression on her face. It's really unnerving that no matter how familiar I am with her, she's still able to do that. Just shut me down to the point where I have no idea what she's thinking. And you know, maybe this was all a colossal mistake that'll end me up dead or in some secret Cerberus prison somewhere. Maybe it fucked up the canon plot even more, but I don't really give a damn anymore.

I can't do this by myself anymore. I just can't. Changing the course of history, saving the galaxy...that shit's for goddamn _heroes_. And as much as I try, and as much as I'm willing to do whatever it takes to try and bend history around, I'm not one. I haven't got Shepard's sixth sense for which call is right, I don't have Hackett's tactical genius, I don't have Miranda's brilliance. I'm just...me.

So if this is what it takes to convince Miranda to trust me, if I need to shake her up, if I need to risk ending up in a psych ward or worse, then fine. Because if I go at it by myself any longer, I wouldn't have lasted much longer, anyway. I've had time to think about it. Going after Saren alone was colossally stupid. I could've called Miranda at any time, but I didn't. I didn't, because deep down, I didn't fully _trust_ her. I was afraid of having to trust her again, of being burned agian. And a part of me didn't want to _have_ to trust, to rely on her. But not anymore.

"I'm not going to ask how you know all of this, because you're not going to answer me, anyway," she finally says. "You realize that this...is a very delicate matter. I could have you shot or imprisoned as a security risk to Cerberus."

"I know."

"I should report this to the Illusive Man. He should know-" Miranda abruptly shakes her head. "But I won't. Perhaps I'm a fool, but something tells me you're telling the truth. It's difficult to believe, but if you're right about even just _some_ of it, then..."

"It's your call." I lean back in the chair, suddenly rather apathetic to whatever fate awaits me. I've done..._something_. Maybe it was something stupid, maybe it was something right. Who knows. But now the ball is in her court. "I won't ask you to blindly trust me, but I'm asking you to look at things objectively and then make your decision about whom to trust."

"And if I decide to turn you in to be tortured and executed?"

"Then I'll accept your decision. I'd rather we were partners than enemies, but there's a storm coming, Miranda. There's a giant-ass storm coming for all of us, and if I have to go against you in order to take the fight to the Reapers, then Divine help me, I will try." The thought of doing just that is liberating and frightening at the same time. I've made my stand, I've made my position clear. Whatever happens, I'm going to take it to the Reapers.

With or without her.

Although I hold no illusions that if I go at it without her, I'm probably not going to last very long. Maybe not even long enough to be ended by the Reapers, but trying to bust out of Cerberus. But that's the way it is.

"Partners?" She rolls the word around her tongue like she did the first time we went on an op together. It seems almost foreign to her, as if she never really had a partner in anything. I can believe it - she seems the type of perfectionist who only gets slowed down by other people in whatever she does. "Why?" she finally asks.

"Because..." I don't exactly know how to tell her that, either. How do you tell someone you need them. That you need, crave their company, their advice, their _presence_ just to stay sane? That without some anchor in this universe I'd flip out of my freaking mind because the task Q has so unceremoniously dumped me into is mind-boggling? That I'll try and continue to go on even if she says no, but it'll most likely get me killed? That somehow, for some reason, _she_ has become my anchor and that without her I'd be lost and probably dead?

"Because I need a _friend_," I finally tell her. It seems so inadequate to describe our relationship. It seems so...simplistic. It goes beyond just needing companionship, it's about having someone to _trust_.

But somehow, she understands, I can see it in her eyes. With a little, honest smile, she reaches out a slender hand across the space between us. "All right, then...friend."

Just that smile of hers makes me grin madly with relief. Partly because I'm not about to be spaced as a corpse or become some sadistic torture-slash-science experiment, but also because, somehow, she _understands_. And in that moment, instinct takes over and I ignore her proffered hand completely.

Instead, I lean over and pull her into a hug.


	35. Chapter 35

**Author's Note: **Here's the beginning of the second arc, an interlude of sorts, before we start getting into the time between Mass Effect 1 and 2. Hope you enjoy, and stay tuned for Arc 2! For those of you wondering, I intend to carry on with this story as far as I can take it, so hopefully all the way to the end of the Reaper War; be warned, however, that some far-reaching changes to canon may or may not be occurring as we go along. But then again, you already knew that, right?

**Chapter Thirty-Five**

The cleanup around the Citadel is still ongoing a few weeks after that battle, but the _Normandy_ has been sent back out on assignment, being one of the few ships left intact after that near-cataclysmic Battle of the Citadel as the press and public have come to name it. I've been keeping an eye out on our patrol route, which has taken the ship along the fringe of the Terminus Systems as per the new security accords that the Council was quick to sign with the Alliance right before Anderson was sworn into office as the fourth member. The _Normandy_ is patrolling a sector of space usually secured by the turians, but with their fleet so thinly spread, the Alliance has taken over a lot of their peacekeeping duties.

Not to mention the fact that these new security and military treaties are long overdue and, quite frankly, much needed in my humble opinion, considering the fact that the turians and the asari lost about a sector fleet's worth of ships. Along with, of course, the dubious honor of having almost let the capital of the Council fall into enemy hands. Not that the Alliance is doing much better, the losses were devastating to the Fifth, but at least the damage was more spread out. Whereas the turians had to scrap the entire Citadel Fleet, the Fifth is being reorganized into a smaller, faster reactionary strike force that Hackett and other top Alliance commanders are planning to use as a rapid response anti-Reaper task force until it can be built back up. And unlike the turians and asari, the human military is taking the Reaper threat very seriously. Hackett, Anderson, and Kohaku sequestered themselves away with the data we recovered from Vendetta, and if I know them at all, then they're probably working out a hundred and one ways to kill the damn things.

So far we've not even gotten close to Alchera, which is a relief. I have no idea when the Collectors are going to come, but I have the feeling it's not all too long away. Truth be told, until I boarded the frigate this morning and we set off from Arcturus, I haven't seen a lot of Shepard. I'm sure she was busy, recovering from her injuries, giving speeches and writing reports and all that. The rest of the _Normandy_'s crew has been catapulted to the status of minor celebrities now, by the way, despite the mission's classified nature. I did mention that they pinned medals on all our chests, even mine, much to my surprise, right? Turns out that even Sparatus admitted the Alliance saved his ass, and tacked on a Nova Cluster to the First and Fifth Fleet ships and crews. Kohaku's squadron even got the Galactic Unit Citation for being the first to engage _Sovereign_ and two of his frigate crews were commended posthumously for trying to kamikaze the damn Reaper.

I wasn't really surprised when the ground personnel on the Citadel, the first responders, the defenders, and everyone who fought back the geth, received a commendation. Some, like Calhoun, even got the Palladium Star. What did surprise me was when someone nominated me for a Palladium Star, as well. I even told them no, but they wouldn't have it - bad for PR and all that. So they pinned some piece of metal on my chest and made me sit through the damn ceremony and speeches with the rest of the crew. I'm willing to bet it was either Shepard's or Miranda's doing. Both of them have a mischievous streak a mile wide, and this kind of thing is right up their alleys.

In response, most of us have gone to ground, so to speak, hanging out close and together and generally avoiding anyone who's not part of the crew. Let me tell you, Garrus plays a _mean _hand of Skyllian Five. Probably because his poker face is, well...his regular face. I still haven't gotten the hang of reading turian facial expressions. In fact, just about _everyone_ except for Kaidan is better at Skyllian Five than me. Tali's pokerface? What pokerface, you can't even _see _her goddamn face.

And Wrex? Hell no, you don't want to piss him off by making him lose. Let me offer you some wise words of advice if you ever play, well, _anything_ against a krogan. Let the krogan win. Or he's just as liable to rip your arms out and beat you to death with them as he is to pay you. And as for Joker? Surprisingly, he's as good at the game as he is at the helm of the _Normandy_.

The only one I stand a chance against is Kaidan, but even so he usually beats me by folding out early and cutting his losses.

Yeah, I'm terrible at poker and all variants of it, it would seem.

Then again, that's nothing new to me. To be fair, most of the time, my mind has been on other things. I know the others on Shepard's crew are thinking about the Reapers, but not nearly on the scale that I am. For them, it's always about the next fight, the next deployment, the next mission. And that's a good thing. It keeps them focused. But the longer we sit in drydock, the longer we wait on the accolades and the speeches and all that shit to finish, the longer we're actually out in _space_...the more I worry and wonder about what's going to happen.

And, more importantly, _if_ it should happen.

The last couple of weeks have really driven home the point rather clearly. For every change I make, there are consequences, a lot of which I have no hope of foreseeing no matter how hard I try. And odds are that it's going to be horribly _worse _in some way or another. Save a few now, deal with horrible consequences later. Cause and effect. Or make my life infinitely easier now, but sacrifice a few people at the same time, and save many down the road.

Arguably, while _some_ good came out of of this, namely the increased awareness - at least in some circles - of the Reaper threat and the subsequent preparations that are underway, a lot of stuff has gone completely off-script. The Fifth Fleet has taken much more severe losses than it did canonically, the Citadel is heavily damaged with the Presidium almost uninhabitable. The galaxy is more divided than ever - oh, it isn't obvious _now_, but I've seen enough politics being played to know where this is headed. The pro-human faction on the Council led by the salarians may have succeeded in pushing through a seat for Earth with the reluctant support of the turians, but the asari are anything but happy about it.

They'll be causing trouble down the road, I'm sure, for whatever reason. This hostility from them is actually new to me, because they were nothing like this in the games. Oh, they were reluctant about letting humanity have this much importance, but it always seemed that they thought the growth we had shown outweighed any concerns they may have had. I can only imagine what kind of problems this could bring with it, especially when the Reapers do come and we need a united galaxy more than anything.

Or hell, even when it comes to the Collectors. The salarians are probably going to try and investigate into the issue, even if they don't believe it to actually _be_ the Collectors. They're just curious like that, and Valern seems to have learned his lesson and is actually actively engaging the STG in security matters now. The turians...I really don't know. It never really was a huge security issue, and they always seemed content to blow it off until it became one. But the asari...

Speaking of the Collectors, that brings me to my biggest worry yet.

Jane Shepard.

The longer I idle around, the closer we're getting to that fateful deployment at Alchera.

Or are we? I don't really know how or when the Collectors came to be active again, if there was any kind of trigger that made them attack the _Normandy_ after _Sovereign_'s failed attack, or if they operate on their own schedule. If they do, there's a small chance, a tiny, minute, almost infinitesimal chance that we can avoid running into them this time. But knowing Q, that cheeky bastard is probably just dangling that little bit of hope in front of my face to frustrate me.

And then there's the question of whether we should avoid the Collectors at all.

Say for a moment that the Collectors never destroy the _Normandy_. Shepard doesn't die, the crew never disbands, and never come to work for Cerberus. Cerberus then crews the SR-2 with random people they recruit, and worst case, the _Normandy_ is sent to take them out. Then what? While I'm pretty certain that Shepard and the SR-1 can handle a great deal of things, I'm also certain that the SR-2 was built for a _reason_. That its mission profile required its upgraded capabilities, and that without them and the upgrades you got to stick onto it during the course of the second game, you're pretty much boned.

No Thanix cannon? Have fun trying to take out the Collector ship. No vortex shielding, or whatever it was called? Yeah, ship's gonna get cut to ribbons, much like the SR-1. In fact, if the SR-1 never encounters the Collectors and thus never acquires these Cerberus-funded upgrades - and I highly doubt that the Alliance would spring for the acquisition and installation of these techs, at least not as quickly as Cerberus, if at all - then the first time they _do_ meet them?

Well, you can imagine what happens. Pretty much what happens over Alchera, only worse. Worse, because this time, there won't be a Lazarus Project, there won't be an SR-2. Or if there are, it'll be much too late, and the Collectors and Reapers will have free reign to do whatever the balls they want. Or maybe Shepard pulls another miracle out of her hat and actually survives to kick even more Reaper ass.

Cause and effect.

Let Jane Shepard die, and have a nice, predictable future.

Or save her and the _Normandy_, and potentially fuck up history and the last hope for the galaxy with the slim chance of actually making things _better_.

Fuck my life.

Or perhaps...try and keep her alive and somehow, _somehow_ get her to join forces with Cerberus, or even do the unthinkable - _take over_ Cerberus. But that itself brings with it any number of issues. Although, knowing Shepard, that's going to be...well, let's just say the woman is the personification of _mule-headed_. Convincing her to have _anything_ to do with a terrorist organization? Not gonna happen.

Hell, the only reason it even happened in Mass Effect 2 was because she had nowhere else to go and pretty much only stuck with Cerberus because it was her best shot at taking the fight to the Collectors-slash-Reapers. And look at what happened when push came to shove and she decided to drop Tim like a hot potato and basically told him to screw off. Not to mention the fact that she'd probably roast me alive if she ever found out that I'm with Cerberus, however necessary.

But there's a little nagging part in the back of my mind that keeps reminding me she'll find out eventually, and when she does, there'll be hell to pay.

But I can't just let them walk into this trap. I can't just let Shepard and fifteen others die.

Or can I?

Goddammit, Q, give me a hand here, will ya?

"You hollered?" The amused tone appearing out of thin air behind me and the world fading to a monochrome really shouldn't surprise me by now, but somehow, it does. Mainly because I didn't actually expect him to respond, and because it's been a while since I saw him last. When was it, on Thessia? Oh, right, when I got shot. Seems like so long ago now.

He's sitting in the corner of the _Normandy_'s tiny mess, and even though it's deserted at this time of the night, time around us has _still_ ceased to move forward. Show off. With an amused chuckle I just lean back and tip my head back over the chair to look at him upside-down. "Hey, Q," I greet the omnipotent being almost casually. I know he's annoying and all, especially when he decides to meddle, but the guy kinda grows on you, you know?

The way he constantly pops in and checks in on you, even if it's only to once again reinforce just how _superior_ he is to mere mortal humans, it's almost comforting. Almost like having an ever-present imaginary friend, or a deity to believe in. Heh, that's a funny thought. Q as an imaginary friend. Well, he's anything _but _imaginary, let me tell you. And Q as God? Damn, that's a scary thought.

"I'll have you know that I was revered as a deity in multiple cultures, most of which you cannot even hope to pronounce or comprehend," he bristles. I barely manage to hide a grin. It's good to know that, no matter how powerful he may be, it's still easy to get a rise out of him. His expression changes to one of exhasperation. "Human amusement," he mutters.

Oh. He can read my mind, I forgot about that. Or can he? I forget. Nor do I care, really. "The job would fit you pretty well. Sit around all day playing the wiseguy and doing nothing while messing with other people's lives." Most of the bitterness, to be honest, is gone from my tone. As annoying and irresponsible as Q can be at times, I'm sure that he does have a plan and a reason for the things he does. And who knows, maybe he's right, and it _is_ beyond mortal comprehension.

I just wish that _sometimes_ he actually tried to _explain_ the damn things he does first before outright assuming we're not gonna get it, anyway.

But in all fairness, I've pretty much come to terms with the fact that I'm stuck here, in this universe that's about to go to hell in a handbasket. And a part of me is kind of glad I've met the people that I did. Shepard, Garrus, Tali, even Wrex.

Miranda.

As far as I know, she's been recalled to Cerberus headquarters for debriefing on the entire Reaper matter by Tim. I don't know if he'll call me in for that, as well, but I imagine he's going to wait for an opportune moment when it won't blow my cover. At least I hope he will.

"So, what bothers you now?" Q asks me with that amused smirk of his that always seems to say that he already knows the answer to his own question but derives some sort of perverse pleasure from seeing me try and figure it out.

I just shrug, deciding to go for the direct approach. I'm tired of playing his bait and switch, and if anything, trying to pull an answer of any sort out of him is aggravating as _fuck_. So I'm not even going to try anymore and just let him steer the conversation wherever the hell he wants. "Just thinking about things. What to do next and all that."

"Really?" Q crosses his arms and titls his head curiously. "The last time we talked you seemed to have a rather firm plan in mind, already. What happened to it?"

My neck is starting to hurt from the weird position it's in, so I sit upright and turn around halfway so I can look at him. "You ever hear that saying...a plan never survives the first encounter with the enemy? That's pretty much what happened."

"So?" He buffs his nails on his shirt. This time it's a setting-appropriate navy blue Systems Alliance uniform with the gold epaulettes of an admiral.

"I got stupid and arrogant," I tell him. "When it came down to it, I decided that I could change the world. I rushed through things without thinking about the consequences. I fucked up, Q, and a couple thousand people more are dead because of it."

"Are you so sure of that?"

"Hell, Q, we blew up the goddamn Presidium. The Fifth took enough casualties to be decommissioned if it hadn't been for Hackett. How the hell isn't that more people dead than in the original timeline?"

He hums for a second in thought, almost as if considering an answer. "Perhaps, perhaps not. Do you know how many deaths were caused by the Reaper's original invasion?"

"No." I close my eyes and sigh. I get the feeling he's going to tell me something rather unpleasant.

"Eighty-three thousand, four hundred and seventy-two."

I snap bolt upright at that. "What?"

"You heard correctly," Q tells me with a slightly amused smirk.

"That's impossible. That's-"

"A good twenty-thousand more than in this changed timeline?" Q shrugs and returns to buffing his nails against his shirt. "I would assume that as a result of the increased military preparedness and the limited time the geth had to prepare, civilian casualties were more limited."

The pessimistic git in me still sees something wrong with that, though. "I compromised our military strength."

Q just rolls his eyes in exhasperation. "Really, you humans. Never content with what you have."

"Was there a better way?"

"Hm?"

"A better way," I repeat quietly. "Just...another way to go about things, to have a better outcome."

He's quiet for a long moment. "I can't tell you."

"Oh, come _on_, Q..."

"I can't tell you because I don't know," he admits. "There are so many possibilities that the outcome depends on, coalescing variants that only converged once you acted upon them."

"I...see. Fuck."

"Are you going to stop, then?"

"Stop messing with the course of events?" At his affirmative nod I chuckle humorlessly and shrug. "Hell no. It's _on_ now. I just...just gotta think about it more. Can't just go running in half-cocked. I let the Reapers mess with my mind, _twice_. That's not going to happen again."

"Then what will you do?" Q waves his hands about. "If I recall correctly, we're here because you're facing quite the conundrum."

"Damned if I do, damned if I don't," I mutter to myself. There's no way I can stop the fight now. The Reapers are just going to roll all over the galaxy if I stop, and the kind of devastation and casulties from Mass Effect 3 are unacceptable. There's just no way I'm letting that happen. Or at least, no way I'm going down without having tried, at least. "You know," I finally tell him, idly fingering the little tab of metal hanging from a ribbon around my neck that they insisted on putting there at the big awards ceremony for all the personnel and the fallen last night.

I'm sure I'm quite a sight, with my dress uniform half undone and rumpled from lack of sleep. I was up all night trying to figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do now, and it hasn't gotten any easier. Thankfully, the engineering shift was rather dull, and Tali didn't notice my pretty lackluster mood all day. I _still _can't sleep, no matter how exhausted I am.

Which is why I'm in the _Normandy_'s mess hall with a mug of cold coffee.

Damn, this is becoming a habit, isn't it?

"Yes?" he asks expectantly.

"You know," I start anew, trying to figure out what exactly I'm trying to convey here. Not just to him, but to myself, as well. "There's no way in hell I'm stopping now. Even if I'm going against history, destiny, or whatever else crap you want to feed people about preordained fates, there's no way I can just sit idly by and do _nothing_."

"I don't expect you to do nothing. But don't you think what you're doing is a little...extreme?"

"Are you trying to talk me into or out of this, Q?" I glare at him. "Look, I know I could just ride this out, and perhaps things will turn out fine. Hell, they might turn out fine after all like they did in the game. But that's not good enough. A galaxy in ruins, entire worlds slagged, billions dead, that's unacceptable, at least to me."

"And what's the alternative? You yourself admitted that you did not fully think things through when you began altering the history of this universe." Q looks every bit as serious as he ever has, and somehow that alone is sobering. Kind of rams home the seriousness of the situation when the cosmic jester gets down to business. "You know that it won't be easy."

"You know, someone once told me that nothing worth doing was ever easy. Of course, he was a sadistic bastard who enjoyed making people's lives hell." I smile wryly. "Besides, ain't never done anything the easy way in my entire life, anyway, so this is about par for course."

"But are you prepared for the consequences?"

It takes me a while to figure that one out, and it's rather chilling when I do. "No," I tell him slowly. "No, I'm not. But I don't have a choice, do I?"

"You do, in fact, have a choice to make. The very one you were pondering when you called me here. It may be a bit more far-reaching than you think it to be right now, but it's your decision all the same" Q shrugs and dusts off the shoulder of his uniform. "Although I think you've already made that choice, even if you don't know it yet."

"I guess so." He's right, you know. The decision on whether or not to warn Shepard about the Collectors and try to save her life wasn't ever really in question now that I slow down to really think about it. If it were someone I don't know, some random...I hesitate to call them NPCs, but basically what amounted to an NPC in the game, a side character, someone I hadn't spent so much time with and gotten to know, someone who wasn't so much of a _person_ to me, it may have been different.

Now I just have to figure out exactly _how_ to go about this without landing me in a loony bin. Or worse, an Alliance prison.

"You're just now realizing the monumental task you've set before you," Q says evenly as he straightens the cuffs of his uniform. "What you're considering right now is going to have repercussions that are impossible even for a member of the Continuum to predict, simply because of the infinite possibilities that arise from such an action. I should warn you, though, that trying to make major changes to the time lines of a universe may not be possible."

"I've got to try, Q."

"Why?" he sounds genuinely curious. It's really weird. Despite the fact that talking to him is almost like talking to a wall, or, in some cases, talking to myself about things, it always brings with it a clarity that I didn't even realize I was missing until he pops in.

Yes, the task I've set before me may seem crazy and unattainable and stupid. And yes, I'm probably the king of idiots for even thinking about attempting something akin to wanting to climb Mount Everest in a t-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops. But when it comes down to it, did I really have a choice? I mean, sure I did. I could've just enjoyed the ride. Hell, I didn't even have to join the bloody _Normandy_'s crew. I could've just sat back and watched things happen from a distance, find some safe place and just hide out until I grow old and feeble and senile, or until Q finally tires of this game and sends me home.

Or I could've played his game and just followed the goddamn plot of the games. Just marched along like a good little soldier following orders and playing according to the script. Even _that_ would've been reasonably safe, because I know where the dangers come from. But no, I decided not to do either of those.

Why?

Because I'm a stupid, masochistic, arrogant ass who thinks he can change the goddamn universe by stubborness and craziness alone. Damn, I think Shepard rubbed off on me.

That and I know that in the end, there's no place that'll be safe from the Reapers, and even if all things go _perfectly_ and we get the best ending? The galaxy is _still_ in shambles, broken to the point where it might never recover from. There's just something in me that isn't just _fine_ with sitting this one out, no matter how scared shitless I am, because I've somehow got to _help_. Any way I can.

And now it's become personal, on top of all of that. I can't just let Shepard die, even knowing she'll pull a Lazarus - literally - and come back to life, because she's my goddamn _friend_. I could no more let her just die knowing I could've tried to prevent it than, say, Miranda. Or my friends back home. I just can't. So I'm about to do the stupidest thing possible and walk into her office and warn her about the attack over Alchera, probably causing all sorts of trouble not just for myself, but also the galaxy.

But it might also give the galaxy a better fighting chance. Shepard's death knocks her out of the fight for two years. Two years that are spent ignoring the Collector raids, two years that are spent sweeping the Battle of the Citadel under the rug and trying to forget about it. Two years that are spent doing _nothing_ to prepare for the Reapers. Jane Shepard is the best weapon the galaxy has against those overgrown space squids, and _they_ know it. Just look at what she achieves over the course of a few months in Mass Effect 3. She unites the goddamn galaxy under one banner. Give her the extra time to prepare, give her Cerberus's resources, and suddenly I have hope that the galaxy will survive this war that's coming.

And consequences be damned, Spock's goddamn good-of-the-many logic doesn't work too good on friends.

"Because if I don't, then I'm no better than all those indoctrinated people helping the Reapers, or all those politicians trying to ignore the threat. They could've done something about it, you know. All the time that Shepard's out, or even when she continually warns them, but they didn't do a damn thing," I finally tell Q. "But even more than that...I'm being selfish here, and I know it. I'm going to change things because I _don't want her to die_. It's that simple." And just like that, the decision has been made. Things are going _down_ now, and like it or not, I'm going along for the ride. It's quite a liberating feeling, actually. And who knows what Shepard could do with two extra years to prepare for the Collectors and the Reapers. "Here's a quote for you I picked up somewhere," I add.

"Yes?"

"Where there's life, there's hope. No cause is lost as long as there's but one fool left to fight for it. And this universe is full of goddamn stubborn people who're capable of stepping up to it and championing that cause."

"And do you intend to be that _champion_?" Q asks me almost dismissively. But I'm fine with that, I really am. Because I'm not that person.

"Nah. But Jane Shepard is, and if there's anything I can do to give that woman an additional chance to make things better, I've got to take it."

"You know, the human penchant for idiocy never ceases to amaze me."

"Idiocy, huh?" I look at Q and cross my arms. "Please, elaborate."

The omnipotent being smirks and leans against the wall. "I'll make it simple for you to understand. As a mortal organic being, the instinct for survival and self-preservation is genetically hardcoded into you. You would not have lasted this long as a species otherwise, naturally...and yet, you as a race, are so prone to these admittedly insane and stupid acts of self-sacrifice and dedication to the extreme. One could almost say to an almost self-destructive level."

"Ah." I nod sagely and grin right back at him, because this is back on my familiar ground. Philosophical debates. As far as I'm concerned, most of that mumbo-jumbo is just about who can bullshit the other person the most, and we engineers excel at bullshitting. "But you see, that's what separates us from animals and other, more stagnant species," I tell him.

And it's Q's turn to look at me curiously. "Do explain."

"Sure, we could just be content to sit around on our asses all day long and do nothing but look our for ourselves. Some people think that way. But you know what? If we all were like that, then we'd have failed as a civilization ages ago. We would've failed at building communities, at building kingdoms and empires and nations that span the world, and now the stars."

I uncross my arms and fumble with the medal that's hanging around my neck. "You're right. Every fiber of my body is telling me that this is insane, that I'm likely to die in this futile enterprise without ever leaving a legacy behind. But I _know_ that this woman there is the best hope this sorry galaxy, maybe even this universe, has for survival. And if I'm going to die, then, _dammit_, I'm going to die trying to make a difference, trying to leave my mark on _something_, even if it's just a bloodstain and a memory on her uniform, because this is bigger than me, and bigger than her, and perhaps even bigger than _you_, Q."

"And that is what is so impressive about humans," Q says quietly, almost reverently. He's silent for a long moment, before he adds something that just causes my irritation level to shoot through the roof for some reason. "And if she can't be saved?"

"What the hell do you _mean_ she can't be saved?"

"It might be her time. There are things even Qs can't change. Death is one of them."

"Are you telling me that there's _nothing_ that can be done about Alchera? That we're destined to get the shit blown out of us by the Collectors, and that she ends up dying alone out there in space? That it's her fucking _destiny_ to end up as a Cerberus science experiment?"

"No," he shakes his head, "but death, once it has chosen a target, will come, no matter the circumstances. Human history is rife with fables of those who attempted to challenge fate and failed."

"That's bullshit, Q, and you know it. You _of all people_ know that. What kind of game are you playing here, Q?" I shoot up from my chair and stalk towards him. This just pisses me off, because Q lecturing me about fate and destiny and all that crap? It's a fucking joke. I have no idea if he's serious or if he's just fucking with me, but this is ridiculous. "You know what? Fine, you want to play it that way, go ahead, I don't give a shit. There's no _death_, no grim reaper, no _entity_ that reaches for you once it's decided that your time's up. There's no hand of death reaching for you, no goddamn preordained time to die. I get that you don't approve of me fucking with your nice little plan for this universe, but guess what? Tough luck! You put me here, this is what you get. You're telling me she can't be saved? Fucking _watch_ me."

Q looks up at the heavens as if addressing the rest of the Continuum. "See? This is what I mean. Stubbornness to the point of madness in their belief." He turns to me with a neutral expression that is devoid of his usual superiority. "I don't know if you'll be successful. As I've told you before, the path you've chosen branches out too far for any member of the Continuum to predict. But I did place you here for a reason, and despite what you may think, I hope you succeed. As for what is to come...good luck."

"Q." I turn around as I walk away from him, the anger suddenly draining out of me. Maybe it's the lack of sleep that's made me so irritable, or maybe it's something about Q that's just so inherently hateable, but suddenly I'm just tired of arguing with him, tired of his cryptic answers, but as he just turns away so casually, I suddenly realize what he was doing. Riling me up like that...it's just cleared my mind and removed any doubts from my decision to change history. "Here's another human quote you should think about. _Aut inveniam viam aut faciam_. I will either find a way, or _make_ one. I'll figure out a way to do this, somehow."

"Well," he says jovially, as if our little spat a second ago doesn't even bother him, "you should be finding out the consequences of your decision right about...now."

And suddenly the world is back in technicolor, and I have just enough time to hear footsteps coming around the corner to calm myself down and plop myself back into a chair before my target enters the mess hall. There's not time to collect my thoughts, no recalling a memorized speech, just the sudden urge to talk to her and the dreadful feeling that something terrible is about to happen.


	36. Chapter 36

**Author's Note: **I apologize for not updating earlier, but between exams, project work, my beta going MIA (and having to find a temp), real life's just been a royal pain in the behind, and I've fallen way behind in my writing and updating. After much delay, though, I think things are back on track for weekly updates (I hope), and here's chapter 36. Hope you all enjoy, and thanks for your patience!

**Chapter Thirty-Six**

"Grayson." Shepard greets me tiredly as she fixes herself a drink. "You're up late."

"Couldn't sleep."

"Seems to be a common problem lately. Something on your mind?"

I shrug and play with my mug of cold coffee. That's actually too disgusting to drink now. "Aside from the fact that we almost got our asses handed to us by a giant space robot and its minion army of littler space killer robots?"

"Don't forget their brainwashed alien helper," she adds with a wry smile.

"Yeah, him, too. _Especially_ him." I still wince when I think back to my stupidity in trying to take Saren on alone. Well, I think I'll file that amongst the _stupidest things I ever did_. Probably one for the top ten.

She leans over the table slightly. "How's the new lung?"

"Doing pretty well, according to the Doc. No issues, and it's about as integrated as it'll get. I'm practically good as new, ready to rush back where angels fear to tread. And me, too, by the way."

"I don't know about that," she tells me with a little smile. "Seems you did pretty well with that whole rushing thing on the Citadel, from what I hear."

"Joker needs to keep his mouth shut," I groan. I don't mind him bragging about how he had to save my ass with his brilliant flying. In fact, the first thing I did was buy him a drink. And then another. And another. I don't mind that at all. But then he got _drunk_. And somehow spilled to Shepard just _why_ he had to bail out my ass.

"Still, that was some pretty nice work from what I hear. I still haven't heard your side of it." Shepard leans forward against a chair, mug in hand. "You probably stopped him from doing some major damage."

"Or I completely fucked things up and needlessly endangered people."

"I really don't think so."

I just cast a wry grin her way. "Oh, you have _no_ idea."

"Then enlighten me." Shepard looks at me a little funny, and suddenly I feel uncomfortable. It's that intense stare of hers that makes you feel as if she _knows_ something and is about to spring it on you. Something _uncomfortable_. "There's a lot of things that weren't in your report. Such as why the hell you thought it was a good idea to go into the middle of a warzone with a lung that might go kaputt at any time."

"Well...I had a little more faith in the doctors than _that_, but..."

"Cut the crap. What you did was irresponsible and dangerous." Shepard glances away for a second. "Do you have _any_ concept of how close to dying you came when you took that round on the _Normandy_?"

"I've got a pretty good idea." That near-death experience with Q kind of gave it away.

"It doesn't seem like you did. That kind of recklessness is something I'd expect from-"

"From a total and utter idiot, I know." I pick at the ribbon that's attached to the medal still hanging from my uniform. Somehow, the damn thing just feels heavy and annoying.

Shepard recoils slightly at my self-deprecating tone. "Not exactly. I know that there's things you know, things you _do_. Most of which I assume have to do with your work for SpecOps, but I don't like my crew rushing into needlessly dangerous situations."

"You're telling me you wouldn't have done the same? The Citadel is under attack, geth are landing and slaughtering everything that moves, you're telling me you would've stayed put and gone into one of the shelters?"

"No. No, I wouldn't have." She lets out a sigh and takes a sip from her mug. "But you don't strike me as the kind of person who would deliberately throw themselves into danger. No offense."

"None taken." She's right, and we both know it. "Look, I fucked up. I get it. I know that. It won't happen again. I just...I got stupid and I thought I could help. I thought I _had_ to help."

The redheaded woman shrugs, idly tugging at the shoulder of her N7 sweater. "Nothing wrong with that. But how the hell did it go from _there_ to taking on a renegade spectre all by yourself?"

"I thought I could make a difference," I tell her wryly. "Guess I got caught up in the whole saving-the-galaxy schtick. For a moment, I actually deluded myself into thinking I could do some good on my own. Fat load of good that did me." I sigh and look down, and suddenly, I just feel angry. At Q, at myself, even at Shepard. Mostly at myself, though, because when it comes down to it, Q put me here, Shepard didn't come, but _I_ made the choices that I did. I've irrevocably sent this universe spiralling down an unpredictable path, and now I'm dealing with the consequences.

And those consequences include having the deaths of tens of thousands of people sitting on your conscience like a metric shit-ton of bricks. Intellectually, logically, I know that most of them would've died from the original timeline. I know Q was trying to butter me up, but it doesn't really help. Deep down, I was hoping for some sort of utopian perfect outcome where _Sovereign_ would be stopped before he could do any major damage. It never would've happened that way, I know, but that doesn't change the fact that somehow, I was still treating this a bit like a game on a subconscious level, with some kind of _perfect_ run.

_Sovereign_ may have been incidental to the deaths of sixty-some thousand people, but the choices _I_ made led him there. I suddenly tear off the medal and fling it onto the table. "I fucked up. I failed. It's over, it's done with, all right? Let's just leave it at that."

Shepard looks at me strangely, almost sadly, then reaches across. Her hand pauses, hovering just shy of touching mine, then drops to the table. "Look, I didn't say that. I didn't mean it that way, all right? For what it's worth, you did good."

"No, I'm sorry, Commander," I clear my throat and look back up at her, getting myself back under control. "I apologize for my outburst, it won't happen again."

The Commander's fist slams into the table with enough force to rattle it - an impressive feat, I note absently, as the entire tabletop and base is solid. "Will you just shut the fuck up for a second and listen to me?" she hisses angrily. "Do I have your attention? Good. Now listen. Am I mad at you? Hell yeah, but not because I think you fucked up. If anything, what you did probably saved some lives, because we wouldn't have gotten those mass relays opened back up nearly as soon as you did. What I'm utterly pissed about is that you almost got yourself killed in the process. Who the fucking hells told you it was a good idea to go running off after a Reaper and his cohort by your fucking self, huh?"

"No one," I tell her with a shrug. "I just...didn't think."

"And that's the problem," Shepard sighs and deflates, her rage spent and she sinks back into her chair, playing with the medal on the table. "Look, I've been there. Let me tell you something about being a hero..._don't_. You think you can take on the world, and in a split second you make a critical decision, and it can end one of two ways. Either you fail and die, or you succeed and forever question yourself if there wasn't a better way, because you think you didn't do _enough_. And more importantly, you never think about the people you leave behind. About what your death would do to others." She shrugs and leans forward. "All I'm saying is...just be glad you survived this one, and next time, think before you run into something crazy. I _hate_ losing crew and friends."

"Aye, Commander." I even mean it, because she's right.

"So, how exactly did you know where to find him?"

Oh, fuck. This is _exactly _what I left out of my report. How I knew where to find Saren. Come on, think. _Think_. "Would you believe I ran across him in a coffee shop?" Oh Divine, that sounded like a dumb line even to _me_.

"Not for a goddamn salarian second." Apparently I'm not the only one.

But perhaps this is the opening that I've been looking for. Or rather, the opening that's being shoved down my throat. Shepard's got that _look_, the one that says she's not going to let things go this time. The one that tells me I slipped up one too many times and she's not going to let me leave until I come clean.

Well...it sort of worked with Miranda. At least, to the point where I haven't been thrown into the loony bin yet, so maybe it's time to stop trying to be Xellos and just go with it. Subtlety was never my strong point, anyway. At the very least, I've got to think of a way to warn her about the Collectors.

I look down into my mug and take a sip, trying to buy me some time to figure out an answer. My train of thought, however, is derailed rather quickly as the taste of stale, cold coffee hits my tongue and causes me to splutter and cough it back up. When I'm done, Shepard is just looking at me with that amused grin of hers and shakes her head. I just shrug in return and get up and dump the vile contents of the mug down the disposal drain.

"You're right, I guess," I say, more to myself than to her. "Got someplace we won't be interrupted in?"

The redheaded spectre looks at me for a moment, almost with curious amusement, then gets up, grabbing a protein bar for herself. "If I didn't know you any better, I'd almost take that as a proposition."

"If it was, things would probably be a hell of a lot easier for me," I mutter, but she heard me anyway.

"I get that impression, yes," she chuckles. "Come on, I just bought Karin a bottle of Serrice Ice Brandy. This is probably the perfect opportunity to christen it."

"You sure she won't mind?" I swear, Shepard drinks more of Chakwas's liquor than the Doc. Which is pretty ironic, although I don't really think Chakwas minds. I'm pretty sure that the good Doc has a hidden stash of alcohol somewhere aboard this ship, just in case she ever runs out.

I also wouldn't put it past Shepard to know about it, heh.

"Has Karin ever turned down a drink?" Shepard chuckles and heads over to the med bay. "She's not on duty right now, so if we're quiet, we might even get away with it."

The quiet hiss of the doors is the only thing that announces Shepard's entry into the darkned med bay as the lights slowly come up. The Commander unerringly homes in on the doctor's desk, opening the drawer and silently hefting the bottle and a pair of shot glasses. Me? I'm just standing in the doorway, fidgeting like an idiot as I watch my commanding officer act like a little kid stealing cookies from a jar. She even has the same gleeful smile as said kid.

"Did you need anything, Commander?"

The voice of of nowhere causes both of us to jump as Doc Chakwas steps out of the shadows of her back office. The sheepish grin on the N7's face though causes me to laugh outright at the sheer hilarity of the situation. I mean, how many times do you ever see Commander-fucking-Jane-Shepard, kicker of intergalactic asses, bane of the Reapers - and mercs, and Cerberus, and other unsavory characters - looking like a kid caught with her hand in the proverbial cookie jar?

And Chakwas - no offense to her - looks like the perfect mother figure tapping her foot on the ground with a disapproving look. It's utterly ridiculous.

Neither Chakwas nor Shepard can hold their expressions for very long and a moment later, both the doctor's contralto and Shepard's mezzo-soprano join me in laughter. The good doctor catches herself first, followed by the Commander, and I'm sure to both women I'm probably looking like a lunatic, because I just can't stop laughing.

It's not even the sheer impossibility of the situation anymore, it's not even about the craziness that I'm about to commit. It just feels..._good_ to laugh. It feels good to know I can still laugh at such inane things, despite all the shit that went down and is about to go down.

It's cathartic.

It takes a minute or two until I can finally stop myself, because every time I look at Shepard clutching the bottle, almost hugging it to herself, I start all over again. To the point where she gives me a mock glare.

"Are you quite done, Lieutenant?"

"Just about. Just...just about." I clear my throat and slap the most serious expression I can on my face to prevent me from giggling all over again.

"Well then," Chakwas asks, that mysterious, knowledgeable smile hovering on her lips, "what can I do for you tonight?"

"Well..." Shepard hums along in thought. "We were hoping to borrow this," she says, pointing at the bottle, "and this," she adds, gesturing around the room.

Chakwas sighs and smiles at her. "Really, Commander, you have an office for that."

"But it's so much more comfortable here," Shepard almost whines petulantly.

"Oh, very well then. I shall take my leave of you Commander. Lieutenant." Chakwas nods at me as she strolls past easily.

I look over at Shepard. "It's more comfortable?" I ask her, a little incredulously.

She just shrugs, grins at me and flops down into Chakwas's chair. "It is. Her chair's comfy. And," she adds with a conspiratorial grin, "she's got chocolate."

With that she reaches deeper into the drawer the brandy came from and withdraws a long bar of silver foil wrapped chocolate with almost reverent grace. Who knew...Jane Shepard, intergalactic badass, slayer of Reapers, chaser of renegades...and connoiseur of chocolates. It's almost enough to make be start laughing again, and I barely catch myself before I go off the deep end. Barely. With a lopsided grin that makes it way past my resistance I settle down into the chair across the desk and pour us both a glass as she unwraps the first chunk and breaks it off.

"Won't the Doc notice you've been into her chocolate?"

Shepard just shrugs and pops the piece into her mouth. "It's my ship," she notes with a grin. "Want one?"

"No, thanks. Not one for sweets."

"More for me, then." The Commander shrugs and nibbles on the candy for a little, a blissful grin on her lips. It's actually quite the peaceful setting we have here.

Too bad I'm about to destroy all that. Even though I'm not quite sure where to start. Which, as it turns out, is quite fine, because it's Shepard who starts the conversation.

"You married, Grayson?" With an absolute non-sequitur that has me blinking in confusion for a second until the words finally register.

"Pardon me?" I think I heard wrong. I _must_ have heard wrong, because I swear I just heard her ask me...

"Are you married?" she repeats easily, breaking off another piece of chocolate.

Where the hell did that come from? "No. You read my file, you know that already."

The woman just shrugs and licks some of the molten chocolate off her fingers before downing a shot. "Just curious. Not even a girlfriend? No one special in your life?"

"No," I shake my head as I pick up my own tumbler and empty it in one long draft. If we're going completely off topic, I may as well get drunk so it'll make sense again. "Why do you ask?"

Shepard looks at me for a long moment, an unreadable, hooded expression in her eyes. "I've found that people who have something to come back to, something or someone to fight for...they tend to be the kind who are the first to throw themselves into impossible situations, and are the most likely to come out standing. Relatively speaking." She pauses, pours us another round, and then just idly tilts her glass against the light, watching it break across the liquid. "Quite paradoxically so, because one would expect that a person with something to lose would be more hesitant, more timid. More cautious."

"As opposed to a crazy maniac who rushes in stupidly into situations he doesn't know jack shit about?" I ask her, a little bitterly. I can't help it, it's still a little raw. Like most people, I don't like to be proven wrong. Even if I _know_ I was being goddamn stupid.

"I didn't say that." Shepard sets the glass down and slides the chocolate bar over to me. "You should try some. It's really quite good."

With a shrug I take a piece from the little tray of foil she fabricated and bite into it, letting the bitter taste of high cocoa content chocolate wash over my tongue. It's bitter, tangy, with a slight aftertaste of berries that I'm sure the purists would hate on but is actually quite pleasant.

"You know," Shepard begins, "I guess in a way you could say I'm married to this ship. I didn't actually think I would be in command of a vessel at some point in my career, nor that it would be this soon. I'm a ground pounder. That's where I belong...on the front lines. So when they handed me this responsibility for a ship and crew I didn't know how to deal with it. Give me a ground combat squad, no problem. But a ship?"

"Looks like you did a pretty good job so far."

Shepard sips her drink a little more slowly this time. "Maybe. Maybe it's the fact that the bond between a commander and her soldiers on the ground is a little stronger than up here in space, because you have to trust your life in them every single day. Or maybe it's something else entirely...but the point is, I care about my crew. I get to know them. Even Pressly - he grows on you, I swear, even as grouchy as he is. It's something I fight for. The Alliance, the Council, they're all lofty, abstract goals, and don't get me wrong, they're perfectly good goals. But me? I need something _here_. Something concrete. So I fight for my crew. I fight for my friends. For my family." She drains her tumbler and looks at me over the rim of the crystal glass. "What do _you _fight for?"

"Freedom, justice, and the American way?" I chuckle at my half-drunken, utterly nonsensical answer and shrug. "In all honesty? Probably the same thing you do. Friends."

"Family?"

"None of that." Not in this universe, at least.

"Loved ones?"

"None of those, either."

She eyes me a little strangely for a moment, then shakes her head. "Too bad. It's really a powerful motivator."

"I dont' doubt that. Just...story of my life, I guess. I go about things alone. Always have."

"That's not a good mindset to have."

"I suppose not," I admit, and it's true. I know it is. But that's just the way life goes, isn't it?

Shepard seems to mull over this for a moment as she pours herself another drink. "I suppose it's understandable in your profession. You're a strange man, Patrick Grayson."

"You're telling _me_ I'm weird? What about you, Miss I-charged-a-thresher-maw-in-a-Mako?" I snort in amusement, coughing and spluttering when some of the brandy goes down the wrong way.

"Who, me? I'm easy. I'm just a violent chick who likes getting into fights. You, on the other hand..."

"With a penchant for mass property damage," I mutter quietly. She hears me, though, and giggles, lifting her glass to me and clinking it to mine.

"Guilty as charged."

"You, though, are rather intriguing. You know, I talked to Admiral Kahoku. For a simple engineer, you seem to dabble in a lot of things. Infiltration, espionage, data analysis. For someone who was just recruited into a project for knowing too much about the situation, you seem to know an awful lot about everything that's going on."

"I like to be well informed?"

Shepard eyes me suspiciously for a moment before giggling. "I suppose. Do you play chess?"

She's just full of these random topic changes tonight, isn't she? I shrug, taking a moment to formulate my answer...because this _isn't_ like Shepard at all. It's not the forceful, confident approach she always takes to everything. It's almost like...she's skirting around the topic, or she's distracted, or something. Come to think of it, she looks just as tired as I feel. With a wry grin, I tell her my deepest, darkest secret: "I do, but I'd rather not. The last time I played at a party after a friend's wedding, I lost."

"Nothing wrong with that."

"To a seven-year old kid."

"Oh." Her lips for a surprised O for a moment as she just blinks at me, before a broad smile breaks out and she tips her head back and laughs. "Seriously?"

"Cross my heart and hope to die. I didn't even last twenty turns."

"Oh, that's rich, that's...brilliant," she manages in between huffs of laughter.

I can't help but grin, myself, despite the fact that, well, it's a pretty embarassing thing to admit, but just like Miranda, Shepard just makes me feel at ease. Even under the threat of imminent and violent confrontation. With her or the Collectors, I don't know. "Go's more my speed," I tell her.

"And I heard from Joker you absolutely _suck_ at cards-"

"That, too."

"You up for a game?"

"Of Go?"

"Chess," Shepard says, rummaging around the doctor's drawers, still giggling.

"Uh...no, thanks."

"Oh, come on."

I look at her, hair half undone from her usually neat bun and floating around her, the rumpled uniform that speaks of lack of sleep - or restless attempts at sleep, have your pick - and the telltale signs of mental exhaustion in the tightness around her eyes and realize that this is really as much for her benefit as for mine. "Sure. Go ahead and kick my ass, Commander."

Shepard pokes her head over the desk for a moment, waggling her eyebrows almost comically at me. "Jane. Just Jane. I'm tired of being Commander Shepard tonight."

It takes me a moment to realize exactly what she means by that. "You're off duty. Shouldn't you have left the Commander in her office? Preferably stuffed somewhere in the closet so she can't get out?"

"I'd like to, but it isn't that easy," comes the muffled reply.

"What about your friends?"

She finally emerges with the chess board in hand and sets it down on the table. Automatically, I start reaching for the black pieces, setting them up on my side.

"Have you looked around this ship?" she asks me, toying for a moment with her queen. "I have soldiers, subordinates. Sure, I'm friends with some, and I'm responsible for all. But even Karin refuses to call me by my first name. Hell, even Joker can't stop calling me Commander even when we're on shore leave."

"Give it time."

"I've known Karin for almost a decade. She'll never change, not that that's a bad thing. It's just...for them I'm this larger than life figure of authority. The first human spectre, the survivor of Akuze, an N7 above their ability to reach or touch. And that's good for a commanding officer. Especially on a ship." She grins a little weakly. "Good for morale. At least I won't have to worry about a mutiny anytime soon."

"But it gets tiring without friends. Without someone to talk to on a really personal level." I suddenly understand; as much as I'm isolated here in this universe, so is Shepard in her position. Especially if there's something personal to talk to, there's really no one for her to turn to. It's the same dilemma high ranking officers in my day face...and a lot of them end up doing something colossally stupid because it got to them.

Shepard nods and finally arranges her game pieces. "I usually talk to Karin, but...there's some things I can't even tell _her_. Things that would undermine their belief in me as their commanding officer."

I wait for her to make the first move, then idly let my mind wander as I move a pawn directly in front of hers. It's really ironic that this didn't come up in the games until way later, until Mass Effect 3, when the romance arc really started to take off, and yet I'm rather familiar with the situation. Still, I have to wonder...

"Why me?"

"The easy answer?" At my nod she continues, jumping one of her knights across the board. "You're not in my direct chain of command."

"No worries of mutiny with me?" I ask in jest.

Shepard chuckles as I take her pawn, only to have my bishop slain horribly by her knight. "I assume you'd give me the courtesy of warning me beforehand so I could prepare adequately."

"You know, I totally would."

As the battle on the chess board continues to rage, I get the distinct impression that Shepard's playing terribly on purpose, because some holes she left were so obvious even _I_ could see them. Not that I'm complaining, because my mind isn't entirely on the game, anyway. It's just another sign she's distracted...or maybe it's the alcohol, because she's on her what, fifth? Sixth? Glass by now.

"The long answer is that you're the odd ball out," she says after a long silence, interrupted only by the clacking of the wood pieces on the board. "I understand _you_, but I don't understand _why_ you're the way you are. There's things you do that scream you're a civilian thrown into this mess, just like you said. And then there's yet _other_ things you do that tell me you know more about everything than you let on. Than you could possibly know, or _should_ know. You're a walking contradiction."

"That's not the worst thing people have called me," I mutter quietly.

Shepard just grins at that. "The thing is...you have this...this disregard for authority in some cases. You're not intimidated by rank or authority, and I get the impression you couldn't care less about how many medals some general has pinned on his chest if you know what he's doing is wrong. Of course, it may end with you court-martialed, but hey, nobody's perfect."

"You mean, I tend to run my mouth," I counter wryly.

"Hey, I didn't say it was a bad thing." Shepard grins right back. "But it's more than that. It almost seems like you stand _apart_ from everyone else, never really getting involved on a personal level. It's something you're doing deliberately, I think, whether you're aware of it or not."

"But that can't be it, right?" I ask her curiously. "I mean, hell, you want an insubordinate smartass, look at Moreau."

"Not in its entirety, no," Shepard admits as she moves her queen over, and suddenly I find myself on the defensive on the board. "I suppose I'm comfortable with you. Must be all those times we've been drinking together."

"You turned me into a raging alcoholic, all right. My liver thanks you," I chuckle inanely. Hey, I'm a little tipsy, myself, sue me.

"It's not something I can explain, really. You just happened to be there, I suppose."

"Gee, thanks for making me feel special."

Shepard grins at me, then takes my queen. "Checkmate."

I look down at the board at her announcement. Shit. I totally wasn't paying any attention to the game the last few minutes. Did I really play so badly there hardly isn't anything left of my figures? Dang. I raise my hands in mock surrender. "Well, I suppose it was inevitable. You got me, Jane."

We lapse back into comfortable silence, each lost in our own thoughts. It's strange to see Shepard like this, so utterly...not _relaxed_, but almost _normal_. Almost vulnerable, because she's letting her guard down and just sitting around like ordinary people. There's actually something I wanted to ask her but haven't...mostly because the answer, in the short term, didn't really matter and in the long term...

Well, let's just say I'd be prying open Pandora's Box with a freaking crow there's something about this situation that just compels me to ask, because it seems like it'll be the only chance I'll get at trying to get an answer and not screwing it up horribly. Or maybe it's the bloody alcohol.

"There's something I've been meaning to ask you."

"Hm?"

"Why?" I ask her, not really sure how to even phrase it. _Why didn't you stick me in the brig? Why do you keep me around? Why are you content to play these games with me, instead of interrogating me like any other same commander?_

"Why what?" she looks up a little sluggishly, trying to shake herself from her thoughts.

Running a hand over my face and through my hair, unfortunately doesn't help me find the answer to that question. "Why all this?" I finally ask her, just vaguely waving my hands around.

Shepard just looks confused. "Because...I like chocolate and brandy?" she asks, a little uncertain, causing me to chuckle.

That's not _exactly_ what I had in mind, but the little bit of humor is actually making it easier for me to think. "No," I tell her. "Not _this_ right here in particular, but everything. Sitting down with me for a drink. Playing along with me. Is this a game to you, Jane? Because every other sane commanding officer I know would have thrown me in the brig and interrogated me at _some_ point in the last couple months, and yet you're content to sit down with me and...and eat _chocolate_ and get drunk." It comes out a little harsher, a little louder than I intended it to, and even though a little part of me is yelling inside my head to shut up and stop digging my own grave, my own morbid curiousity is getting in the way.

"Why play along with me at all, Jane? I know you suspected. As the captain of this ship, hell as a goddamn spectre, you think anyone would've stopped you if you _really_ wanted to find out what I knew?"

Shepard's uncharacteristically quiet and subdued at my sudden outburst, and I can't help but feel bad. I mean, she was relaxing and even having a good time, I think...and then I go and do something stupid and bring this up. I feel like smacking my head against the wall, because she didn't want to have anything to do with her command duties tonight and the first thing that I spout goes right back to that.

Me and my big mouth.

But it's too late to take back now.

And part of me actually doesn't want to. I'm tired of the cloak and dagger shit. I just can't keep this up. I know I have to, or bad shit happens, but a growing part of me just wants to scream and then go tell someone. It's not all that different from the way Shepard's feeling, really, which is why I guess I'm feeling her right now. I know it's cliche, and I know it's not exactly something you hear every day - I mean, really, what do _I_ of all people have in common with the legendary Commander Jane Shepard? Not much.

Just, you know, the fact that both of us are isolated in our positions. She's the commanding officer of the Alliance's premier recon and covert assault frigate, the flagship for turian-human peace, the first human spectre, and a highly decorated operative, someone soldiers look up to. Me? I'm an interloper in this universe, and as much as I want to, I can't really _talk_ to anyone about the stuff that bothers me. I can't bounce Q's cryptic answers off someone for feedback, I can't bitch and moan about how he pisses me off, or how absolutly alone and...and _lost_ I feel sometimes in this universe.

To my surprise, though, Shepard just laughs, leaning back in her chair and shaking her head in mirth. "I was right, you _are_ crazy," she chuckles. "No one else I know would have the gall to ask their commanding officer that and look a gift horse in the mouth." She's actually smiling at me now, albeit a little forced. "You're right, of course. I had considered doing that. Almost did."

"Then why didn't you?"

"Because my gut told me to trust you." She chuckles mirthlessly. "It sounds so silly when you say it out loud, doesn't it?" Shepard looks at me with an almost baleful glare. "I _wanted_ to mistrust you. I _wanted_ to get to the bottom of whatever you were hiding. God knows, you gave me enough reason to. I swear, you let things slip so many times..."

"I know, I'm a terrible secret agent," I deadpan.

"But then you kept doing the unexpected," Shepard continues. "Every time I expected you to stab us in the back, every time I expected your hidden agenda to come out and leave us high and dry, you didn't. In fact, in most cases, you even went out of your way to warn us, or risk your life. It confuses the hell out of me. My brain tells me you're hiding something, something dangerous. It tells me not to trust you under any circumstances. It tells me to plan contingencies for the event that you _do_ betray us, or something does go wrong. It tells me to make sure that I'm able to minimize any damage you could possibly cause and get you off my ship as soon as I can."

She pours herself a glass, empties it, then pours another one. Instead of drinking it, though, she slides it over to me. "You haven't had nearly enough to drink. Getting drunk by myself isn't any fun."

I pick up her glass and down the liquor in one gulp, letting the fire burn my throat and warm my insides. "I wouldn't exactly blame you if you did. So why are we sitting here now, like this? Why keep me around, hell, why even be this friendly with me?"

"Like I said, you kept surprising me. My brain might've told me one thing, but my heart..." she chuckles a little, taking a swig directly from the bottle, "it told me the exact opposite. Can't explain why. So I decided to give you a chance, and you haven't proven me wrong yet."

It's both reassuring and frightening to hear that...and it takes me back to a very similar conversation I had months ago, with a different woman who also decided to trust me. Now I know what Q meant when he said that I had invited something more dangerous than the Reaper invasion onto myself with this woman's trust. It feels infinitely reassuring and comforting to know that she is an ally, to know that she's just _there_.

It's also incredibly terrifying to think of what would happen if she ever became an enemy. Shepard as an enemy is scary enough. Shepard whose trust I broke is a much more terrifying enemy by far. I have no doubt that she'd hunt anyone who betrayed her down across the galaxy and probably into hell itself. It makes me dread her finding out that I'm working for Cerberus. It's inevitable, of course, because my entire presence here on this very ship is a house of cards that is getting progressively more complex with each passing day, and just more likely to come crashing to pieces around me.

I suppress a shiver at the thought. With any luck, that'll be far, far into the future, but I can't help but spare it a thought. "Let's hope it'll never come to that," I whisper hoarsely, partly from the alcohol burning its way down and partly because I know it's a lie.

"Amen to that." Shepard clinks her bottle against my glass, then tilts it to pour a refill. "Now what the hell were you thinking taking on Saren Arterius by yourself?" she asks, and it takes me a moment to connect the dots through my alcohol and exhaustion-addled brain to realize that she's come back to our original topic of conversation from the mess hall.

"Just...just figured he'd be up to no good. You know?"

"You're a terrible liar."

I open and close my mouth for a few seconds trying to get them to work and form a coherent excuse, but the alcohol isn't letting me. With a heavy sigh, I give up the fight and just slump down against the desk, staring across its surface at the woman on the other side who's looking right back at me, her chin propped up in the palm of her hand. "Protheans sabo-sabotaged the Citadel. Found that out from the VI we recovered the data from," I tell her, slurring quite a bit as a yawn sneaks its way past. "Figured he'd need to undo their sabotage...whatever the hell it was. Must've been something really important, if _Sovereign_ is sending someone like him, so I hitched a ride on a geth dropship and found him in the Council chambers."

"That was an utterly stupid idea."

"The dropship?" I scrunch my eyebrows together tiredly. "I thought it was rather convenient."

"Going after Saren."

"Oh." I tilt my head and pillow it in my arms. "Yeah. I know."

"Why do it, then?"

"Figured if I could buy you some time, I had to. Sorry it wasn't enough. Just...thought that if I could stop him long enough, then the fleet could destroy _Sovereign_. Then he shut down the mass relays." I shrug and look up at her. "In the end, it turns out coming there was a mistake, after all. It was a trap."

"What do you mean?" she asks gently, curiously, almost...thoughtfully.

I straighten back up and lean back in my chair. "The protheans had coded in a block to prevent anyone who was indoctrinated from accessing the Citadel controls and sabotaged remote access. Saren couldn't have done jack shit to that console until I stupidly used it to open the mass relays. He was just playing with us, waiting for someone to come along to _try_ and stop him and run right into his trap. And I walked into it headfirst like a bumbling fool."

"If you hadn't opened the relays, _Sovereign_ would've destroyed the fleets, and the Citadel would've been overrun," Shepard counters quietly.

"He wouldn't have been able to try and open the relay by himself."

"You don't know that."

"If he could've, then why didn't he? Why bother sending Saren, why not a geth technician?"

"Because you were _right_. It _was _a trap, designed to place you in a no-win scenario. You did the best you could under the circumstances." Shepard's almost glaring angrily at me now, her voice no longer even and controlled, but rather a rollercoaster of pitch and volume, as uncontrolled as the firestorms she usually unleashes on the battlefield. "Don't you _dare_ say that there was another way, that we didn't do the best we could. Don't. Even. Think. It."

"And if there was?" I ask her quietly.

"Then three thousand people died for nothing, and I refuse to accept that," Shepard snarls, hammering her fist down on the desk. "You hear me? I _refuse_ to accept that."

And then it suddenly hits me what this is all about. The way she's looking like she hasn't slept at all, the exhaustion, the way she's been distracted all night, the sudden desire to get drunk, the mood swings, all of it. I was just too self-absorbed, too distracted by my own worries that the woman at the very core of all of my plans, the pivotal figure of the war I'm planning out, is falling apart with guilt. She may have been able to shrug things like this off in the game, but this is _real life_. Even the most hardened soldier won't be able to take something like the death of thousands of civilians lightly.

Especially when you're the one who gave the order.

"What I did made what you had to do necessary in the first place," I tell her gently. "So if anything, blame me for it. You did the best you could, given the circumstances. It was the right choice," I echo her words from just a minute earlier. I really don't want to be arguing with her about this, not after having gone through the same spiel with Q already earlier tonight.

The Commander...no, not really the Commander, because right now, the woman sitting across from me isn't Commander Shepard. She isn't in battle, isn't the guarded, self-assured persona she always assumes in front of her crew or in battle. Right now she's just Jane, trying to come to terms with what she did, and the consequences of it. Just like me.

With a wry, humorless grin at the irony of our mirrored situations, I take the bottle from her hand, pour us both a shot, and slide her glass over to her. "There wasn't any choice. I failed to stop him from accessing the Citadel's controls, so I guess this one is on both our heads."

"I had Vigil's overrides. If I'd been faster, if I maybe had just let him close the arms, hadn't gone for the power station but up to the Citadel Tower, instead..."

"Then the arms would've been closed and no one would've been able to get to him."

Shepard picks the glass up and looks at me a little strangely. "Patrick?"

"Yes?"

"This isn't going to be over just like this...is it?"

I'm not really sure what she's referring to, but..."No. No, it won't."

She sighs and raises her glass to mine. "You're not the only one who wishes there'd been another way, you know?"

"I know."

"_Was_ there another way?"

You know, they say hindsight is always 20/20. That a better solution always presents itself after the fact. But in this case...it hasn't. And that, I suppose, is part of why this situation bothers me so much. It isn't that I tried and failed. It's that I tried, failed, and then found out there _wasn't_ a better way. That the death of all those people, not just the ones on the Citadel or the Presidium, but those soldiers in the fleet, that _this_ was the best possible outcome, that is something I'm finding hard to accept.

In some ways, it would've been easier if I'd screwed up, because then there'd be someone to blame for sixty-four thousand casualties. Most likely myself.

But when something like this happens...it just sucks, because people are dead, and there wasn't anything anyone could've done about it.

It _really_ sucks.

"If there is, then I can't find one," I finally admit to her. "And as much as I hate to admit it, this was the best we could do. Like you said...sometimes, there just isn't a better way."

It stings when you have to admit that you set out trying to save the universe and the deaths of more than sixty thousand people was inevitable. Unchangeable. It even makes Q's argument that there were twenty thousand casualties less than in the original timeline sound hollow and morbid. It makes him sound like a total jackass, now that I think about it, so easily dismissing this many human lives as just numbers.

Hell, I can't even _imagine_ twenty thousand people in one place.

This isn't a game, and there isn't a perfect run.

"Life sucks," Shepard sums it up for me.

"Amen to that."


	37. Chapter 37

**Author's Note: **I know that a lot of you are wondering if I'm just keeping on pushing off the red thread of coming clean to Shepard...rest assured, there is a point to it, something I had planned for the coming few chapters, and I hope you'll enjoy it when it comes out. Also, expect some major changes to be occurring...beginning right about..._now_. Enjoy the ride!

**Chapter Thirty-Seven**

As the days pass, my apprehension about the upcoming confrontation with the Collector ship over Alchera slowly fades, mainly because our course takes us far, _far_ away from that frozen ball of ice. And unless the Collectors are actively hunting for the _Normandy_, well, then there's no way in hell we'll be running into them unless we're bloody unlucky. And the way I see it, after all the shit that's happened lately, we're about due some good luck.

Still, I'm wrestling with the decision to tell Shepard about them every single goddamn day. It hasn't made it any easier. After our little drinking night things have gone back to normal. Well, as normal as things can get on our crazy little frigate. I've been on the verge of telling her a few times, and chickened out every single time. _Not the right time_, _not the right place_, I've rationalized it. Didn't want to jeopardize my place on this ship, not until I can get a look at the big picture. Truth of the matter is, I don't want to jeopardize what I have right now, this easy cameraderie, this friendship I have with Shepard and the rest of the crew, something that I've been missing since Thessia. I don't want to rock the boat, change the status quo, and lose all this, because in some way, it keeps me sane.

At least, that's what I tell myself. And so far, I've gotten away with it. We've been back in space for two weeks now, without ground deployment, and I think Shepard's getting antsy. Let's face it, that woman isn't comfortable unless she's in the thick of it, kicking ass and taking names. But aside from a few pirate ships, all of which surrendered at the mere _sight_ of the _Normandy_, and a few geth cruisers, which were summarily blown out of space, all's been quiet on the proverbial western front.

It's the shuddering of the floor below me that catches my attention as I'm making my way out of the shower one morning, followed immediately by the howling of the alert klaxon. Joker's voice crackles over the intercom.

"All hands, action stations, all hands, action stations."

I shoot up from where I've been towelling off, rushing into my clothes and make a mad dash for the bridge as the ship tilts slightly from Joker firewalling the throttle. The engines underneath the deck plating rumble as the Tantalus core is unleashed, propelling the _Normandy_ as she surges forward through space. I'm barely done buttoning up my uniform shirt when I arrive, Tali and Kaidan behind me. Garrus and Wrex are already there, standing behind Shepard as she leans over Joker's shoulder.

"Can you catch them?" she asks him.

"Maybe." The pilot is unusually quiet as his hands fly across the holographic controls, coaxing every little bit of acceleration out of the _Normandy_'s engines and inertial gravity field. "Looks bad. Do we really want to catch them, Commander?"

"We've got to."

"Right, then." Joker's focus returns to the tiny speck of light in the distance that's the target ship which, despite everything, is steadily pulling away from the _Normandy_. "How the hell are they going so fast?"

I look over Tali's shoulder as she brings up a sensor readout. "Looks like an oversized mass effect core. Strange," she mutters, more to herself than anyone else.

"How so?" Shepard asks.

Our quarian engineer turns her attention away from the console. "The geth operate in synchronicity. It's one of their strengths. It also makes it very difficult for them to purpose-build a ship, unless a decision is made by consensus. The collective has no need for modified vessels unless there is a very good reason."

"What could be the reason for building something that can outrun the fastest ship in the fleet? That thing doesn't look much bigger than a shuttle."

"Surveillance," Tali concludes after a moment. "It has no combat purpose, it's too small to be a scientific platform, but geth long-range surveillance equipment is extremely compact."

"I don't think I'll be able to catch up to it before they make the relay at the other end of the system, Commander."

"Keep trying. We in range for a warning shot?"

"Not even close."

Ten seconds pass in terse silence, then Joker finally announces, "she's gone."

"Dammit." Shepard grimaces and turns around, and I can practically _see_ the stress and tension in her body from having to chase geth and pirates around in space, out of her element, for weeks. It's a boring, frustrating duty, because there's very little out here that can match the _Normandy_'s arsenal and even if there was, let's face it: she won't be satisfied until she gets her boots on the ground again.

"Did we get a transit vector off of him?" she finally asks.

Tali shakes her head and works her omni-tool. "Negative. Entry vector was much too general, and this relay node branches out too far."

With a sigh, the Commander steps back from the cockpit and leans against the wall. "All right, stand down. Joker, get us back on our patrol route. I'll be in my office."

You know, for a supposed _war_, this war is actually rather boring. I mean, I know that there's more to war than space battles and ground battles and action and all that...but there really isn't enough left of the geth forces in Council space to really call this a _war_. Maybe a highly asymmetric war, if the geth were so inclined to attempt to wage asymmetric warfare in the first place...which they aren't.

I look over at Wrex, who huffs in disappointment. The big krogan, I think, is getting as fed up with being cooped up onboard as Shepard, but unlike our intrepid Commander, I think he'd be happy with just seeing things blow up from here. For a while, at least. "Hey, maybe next time we'll actually find a base, or something," I tell him quietly. "Then you and the Commander can go have some fun demolishing the place."

Wrex just rotates one eye to look at me with a toothy half-grin that's almost wry, shrugs, and ambles away. Well...guess I'll actually get that breakfast I've been meaning to have. My shift in engineering doesn't start for another few hours, and I can tell that even Tali is getting a little agitated by the lack of...well, _anything_ to do.

Yeah. That's right. _Tali_. Bored. In an _engine room_.

What's the world coming to?

I suppose this can't really be called a war. It's really more like the Alliance and turians are mopping up the remainder of the geth and cleaning house. Oh, there's still pockets of resistance left, but for the most part the need for a dedicated ground strike team is not really there anymore. The need for _ships_ is, though, which is why the _Normandy_ has been relegated to patrol and search-and-destroy operations.

There's upsides to this, I suppose. It's quiet, and Cerberus isn't really rearing its head yet. In fact, I haven't heard from Miranda ever since her departure from the Citadel, wherever she's going. The main one is, though, that we're _nowhere_ near Alchera, and aren't supposed to be. At all. Which means no Collectors. When I saw our patrol route for the next three months, I could've cheered. And contrary to the soldiers aboard the _Normandy_, unlike Kaidan, or Wrex, or Shepard, or even Garrus, I'm perfectly happy spending my days in routine, without life or death situations.

It's nice to be able to slow down and unwind after the hectic, mad dash to stop Saren and like, actually be able to take my time to plan shit out instead of flying by the seat of my pants all the time. I don't really know much of what happens between Shepard's death and resurrection beyond a few key events. I mean, I know that Aria T'Loak will find some Collectors on Omega that are striking a deal with the Blue Suns...or was it the other way around? And there was that assassination attempt from Mass Effect Galaxy by that batarian ambassador...Jarth, Jarry, Jerry, or whatever his name was. Jagammemnon? Jagaraty? Whatever. I should probably warn Miranda about that one, too, but I have no idea when it's going to take place and more importantly, I don't actually _have_ to do anything, because between her and Jacob that got handled just fine. Of course, that's assuming the shit I've done so far hasn't completely fucked _that_ up, too.

And you know what? Having a bit of time to think about things, to put them in perspective...we aren't really in that bad a place right now. I mean, look at it. We managed to stop Saren and _Sovereign_, the Alliance is taking the Reaper threat more seriously than they ever did in canon - mainly thanks to the fact that Alliance brass actually have confirmation that _Sovereign_ was a Reaper from the prothean war records I handed to Hackett and Kohaku. The _Normandy_ isn't going anywhere close to Alchera, so she isn't going to be blown out of the sky, Shepard's not going to die, and the Systems Alliance military is gearing up something _fierce_.

_And _we're mopping up the geth, have some peace and quiet, and all seems to be going well. Looks like it's smooth sailing ahead for a few weeks, at least. Right? _Right_?

T

"Tell me again _why_ you thought this was a good idea, Commander?" I yell over the gunfire at Shepard as a burst from the juggernaut's pulse rifle carves a neat hole through the console I'm using for cover.

The woman in question doesn't immediately answer as she charges her biotics and sends a wave of pressure at the big, red geth that's got me pinned down, followed by the bark of her shotgun as it chews its way through the poor geth's chestplate and internal circuitry. Her head pops over the console with a shit-eating grin. "Don't tell me you're not having fun, Grayson."

"I'm not, as a matter of fact."

"Well, _I_ am. Commander's prerogative."

And with that she's gone, having Charged at her next unfortunate target. You know what I said last time about shit getting boring and all? Yeah, I was wrong. Very, _very_ wrong, because the Alliance discovered a number of geth listening posts and assembly plants on the border of Citadel space. Similar to the heretic geth central manufacturing station you fight your way through in Legion's loyalty mission? Yeah, like that. Only, mostly on the ground.

What's the first thing they came up with? Blow them to hell - and I would've been perfectly fine with that. It's a good plan. Hell, it's a _great_ plan. But _no_, someone had to have a smart idea and mention that perhaps we could find some valuable intel down there? Geth troop movements beyond the Veil, their relative strengths, communications protocols, the works. And so what should've been a simple get-into-orbit-and-blow-the-crap-out-of-them mission turned into a slightly more complicated and vastly more entertaining - for Shepard and Wrex, at least - get-on-the-surface-and-blow-the-crap-out-of-_most_-of-them-and-recover-what's-left mission.

The problem with that?

There's a whole _shitload_ of geth here. Because, you know, they kind of don't want anyone taking their stuff. So they guard it. With geth. Lots of geth. Did I mention there's a lot of geth here yet?

Of course, the whole thing is made _considerably_ easier by the fact that Shepard brought Wrex along. Kaidan, Garrus, and Tali are on the other side of the planet trying to sabotage the maintenance facility the geth are using to repair...well, themselves, I guess, while Shepard decided it'd be a good idea to storm the communications array. Admittedly, it _is_ a really good idea, I'd just prefer if there wasn't so many bullets flying through the damn air.

My cloak fizzles at another near-miss as I move into position across the corridor and raise my pistol. There's just three geth at the other end, plus the juggernaut that Shepard just trashed. Easy targets, right? Line up the shot, pull the trigger, quickly transition to the next target, repeat.

All that before they realize where the shots are coming from and return fire.

I'm actually getting quite good at this, which I suppose is a good thing. Actually, _good_ may not be the right word here. _Efficient_ would be a better term, because good would imply I'm taking pleasure in doing this. I'm not...it's more of a detached indifference, really. I tap my radio. "We're clear."

"All right. Let's keep looking, then."

"Looking for _what_, exactly, Commander?"

"The control room, of course."

Of course it's the control room. It's _always_ the control room. Why does everything in science fiction always have to have a goddamned control room where all the base functions are conveniently centralized? I mean, it's not exactly like this is the bloody Johnson Space Center where Mission Control is at the heart of all operations. With a wry grin, I click my radio back on. "Let me guess...you have no idea where you're going."

Shepard's reply comes back immediately, and full of cheek. "Of course I do. We're going this way."

And naturally, she's fully aware of the fact that I can't see her and thus know if she is _actually_ pointing in the correct direction. With a sigh, I pack up, toggle my cloak, and set off after her and Wrex. It really isn't hard to follow those two. I swear, they're kindred spirits of mass destruction, or something.

It's really strange, though, because compared to what Kaidan is reporting in from the other site, there is a ridiculous amount of opposition. I mean, I know a comm relay station is important, especially so for geth to maintain their consensus and network capabilities, but I would think a production and maintenance facility would have priority. But we're being positively _swarmed_ by them, as if something put them on high alert.

I mean, aside from the Alliance sending in a strike team, who the hell else runs any sort of combat operations here at the back end of the Skyllian Verge? Oh, wait, the-

"Commander?" Joker's voice comes over the radio. "I have three ships entering the system. Batarian Hegemony IFF. They're in full combat mode, I think someone's looking for trouble."

"Stay in stealth. Keep an eye on them and keep me updated."

"You got it, Commander."

Great, as if the geth weren't enough trouble, now we have bloody batarians in orbit. They probably won't take long to figure out there's an awful lot of action going on on the ground. I wonder if they're here because of the geth, or because they spotted the _Normandy_. From what I remember, they're not exactly friendly with the Alliance, especially after the Skyllian Blitz.

"We have a problem. They know we're here, Commander. Listen to this."

"Attention human vessels. This is Commodore Baranik of the Hegemony battlecruiser _Vengeance_. You are under arrest for acts of military aggression against Hegemony space, illegal entry into sovereign territory, and terrorism. Prepare to surrender and be boarded." The voice is distorted slightly by the translator, but it still makes me want to laugh incredulously. Batarians, accusing _other_ people of terrorism? The freaking space-jihadists of the Mass Effect universe?

And how'd they even spot the _Normandy_ in the first place? The ship has been running silent since we hit orbit. There's little time to think about it further, though, as more geth come rounding the corner. Shepard and Wrex Charge forward, causing lead rank of geth platforms to implode into itself. Just behind them is a large blast door leading outside and to the base's communications array.

Sneaking past the fight that has devolved into a melee brawl, I set my omni-tool up to run a quick scan to see what's on the other side. It's clear, for now, so I start hacking the door controls. The last of the geth drops even before the hack finishes, and both of my squadmates come waltzing up towards the bulkhead with satisfied grins on their faces. Oh, Shepard and Wrex...two peas in a pod, so easily amused by violence. The lock beeps angrily as the geth firewalls struggle against Cerberus software, but seeing that the Commander is there, I figure I may as well let her have some fun.

Stepping back from the door, I pick out a brick of explosives off my belt and hand it to her. "There. Have at it, Commander."

She doesn't need to be told twice and starts lining up pieces of explosive along the structural supports of the blast door. Thirty seconds later, she joins me and Wrex around a corner and presses down on the remote detonator with a gleeful smile that belies the violence with which she likes to open doors.

Speaking of doors, there isn't much left of the blast door, by the way. I guess moderation isn't exactly a word Shepard knows when it comes to explosives. I mean, the door isn't just gone as in blasted off its hinges or blown open like you'd expect, but it's _gone_. As in, completely and utterly _obliterated_. Reduced to a pile of molten scraps and smoldering pieces all over the place. That kind of gone.

The comm array is right in front of us, a simple radio tower-like structure that stretches a transmission dish towards the heavens with a mainframe near ground level. It makes sense, the geth have very little use for habitable structures or life support systems beyond anything that'll keep their platforms out of enviromental dangers or defensive structures. This place is a little more hospitable than Haestrom - as in, we're not cooking out in the direct sunlight - but the atmosphere is toxic as hell.

Not that that particularly troubles the geth, seeing as they don't need to breathe. From what I can gather, this planet _used_ to have a breathable atmosphere, at least until half a century of heavy batarian development and industrialization completely polluted it to the point where even the batarians had to abandon it. That was about the time of the First Contact War, as far as I can gather from the Citadel's historical records. Not nearly long enough for what little remains of the ecosystem to recover.

It's the perfect hideout for the geth, though. It's out of the way from major space lanes, has very little in terms of resources other than heavy metal deposits that would make it attractive for colonization, and then there's the whole toxic atmo thing. Yeah, little chance of running into people here.

Plus, it's deep in batarian space, or what the Batarian Hegemony claims as its sovereign space, so no one in their right mind actually _wants_ to go there if they can avoid it. Yeah, the batarians are _that_ unpleasant. I'm usually not one to condemn an entire race quickly, but the few I've run into were...less than pleasant. You think an empire run as a totalitarian state is fiction in the age of space travel? The batarians are _living_ it. It's like freaking Lybia _in space_.

Shepard brings a gloved hand up to shield her eyes from the unmitigated glare of the sun high above us as she looks over the concrete plain ahead of us. "Look pretty clear," she mutters, more to herself than to us. It's a clean run over there, no geth as far as the eye can see - and as flat as this surface is, stamped down and laid with mechanical precision, that's pretty dang far. Still, something's telling me that's not all there is to it.

Apparently I'm not the only one as even Wrex takes his time before stepping out fully.

"Anyone else smell a trap?"

"Yeah," Shepard acknowledges. "But not from the geth."

Right on cue, Joker's voice comes over the radio again, a little more agitated than last time. "Commander?"

"Go ahead."

"They know _someone_'s here, at least. One of the ships is heading down to the surface, right towards you. The other two are maintaining orbit. Weapons hot and barriers up."

"Can you take them?"

"I think so, but I'd rather not find out. These aren't slavers or pirates, Commander. These are military." Joker rustles around for a moment. "But yeah, I can take them."

"Be ready. Let's hope we don't have to shoot our way out of this, but-" Shepard's further orders are cut off by another transmission from the batarian ships as they blanket every comm frequency.

"Attention, human vessels. This is your last opportunity to surrender. If you do not-"

I just tune him out and switch my radio back to our squad channel. "Commander?"

"Yeah?"

There's just something odd about the way that batarian is talking. "I've got the strange feeling he isn't here for us. He keeps talking about ships, as in plural. If they tailed us, they wouldn't be insisting on arresting us for stuff we haven't done yet, and they know it."

She cocks her head to the side and glances up at the sky. "I get the same feeling. We're missing something here. That ship's going to be down in a couple of minutes, we better get our answers before then."

"Guess we should move it, then."

Shepard takes off across the tarmac with me right behind her and Wrex bringing up the rear. There's a few scattered geth turrets out there that try and stop us, but my cloak mostly negates their ability to target me. How the hell Cerberus managed to not only make a near-complete optical cloak but also a thermal cloak and package it into something I can actually wear on my armor is still beyond me. Our two wrecking balls, however, take a more direct approach. We may as well have brought rocket launchers the way Shepard and Wrex are demolishing everything that stands in their way without even slowing down.

"Remind me again what exactly we're looking for here?" I ask absently as I initiate the hack, something that's gotten to be standard procedure for me over the last couple of weeks.

It's a rhethorical question, but Shepard replies, anyway. "See if you can get a starmap. Communications to other outposts, platforms, the works."

"Aye, Commander." I start the search routine and then for good measure decide to dump the entire memory core, or as much of the logs as I can fit, anyway. An opportunity like this doesn't come often, and who knows what Tali can figure out from whatever I manage to grab. I've long stopped questioning that woman's almost innate ability to figure out technology, both hardware and software.

It's almost like playing one of those RPGs or JRPGs that send you on stupid fetch quests. _Go kill x-amount of y-monster to get z-drops_. In this case, it's a hunt for geth communications and encryption protocols. Even two hundred years in the future, knowing the enemy's communications is still key to victory. And the geth might as well have been the bloody Rebel Alliance considering how well they're hiding. It's not that they're hard to dig out once you find them, it's the _finding them_ part that's difficult. They're so decentralized and spread out it's more a matter of sheer dumb luck of stumbling across some of them that determines our ability to find their bases more than anything else.

That alone has told us something about them. The geth have scouted this region of space exhaustively, probably for several decades, mapping and determining the best places to hide from organics. Sometimes that's the most inhospitable worlds you can think of...other times its right in the middle of population centers, where no one would think to look. Their ability to stay hidden in the local cluster is something a lot of military strategists would give their left arm for.

The download bar moves at its usual excruciatingly slow pace while the omni-tool tries to deal with the geth I/O protocols. I'm pretty much tethered to the mainframe access while the damn thing chuggs away; since the geth don't really use compatible hardware access, the omni-tool's connected via the geth version of a wifi network. Which has a _very_ limited range, let me tell you. It's using a shortwave signal to limit the range of remote access for security reasons.

Still, it's a heck of a lot better than being connected by a USB cable, or something, even if it's slower. Still, with quantum computing it doesn't take long before it dings and announces that it's filled up its memory. There's something weird in the geth sensor logs. I'm almost tempted to look at them further, but it can wait, at least till we're off this planet and away from three batarian warships. Then Joker's voice makes a new announcement.

"Commander? We have an unknown contact up here, breaking from the far side of the third planet. It's making a run for the relay. She's fast." There's a little pause, probably as he watches his scanners. "One of the batarians is turning to pursue, but I don't think they'll catch them."

It's a strange flashback to our encounter not too long ago. Shepard apparently seems to think the same thing. "Is it the same contact we've been chasing the last couple of days?" she asks from her position as she casually sweeps the area for geth, shooting occasionally as some unfortunate platform comes into her field of view. I swear, that woman makes holding a position in the middle of hostile territory look _easy_.

"I don't think so. It's sensor shadow's too big to be our runner. This thing's massive. Probably larger than a cruiser."

"Is it a geth ship?" Kaidan chimes into the conversation for the first time from the other side of the compound. "We've swept the area, there's little left here. It would appear the geth packed up and left. The maintenance facility is completely inactive."

"Negative, it's not geth. Power signature and silhouette are all wrong. It's-" Joker pauses for a moment, then the sky lights up above us. That other batarian ship is getting awfully close. Probably too close now for us to make a run for it back to the _Kodiak _and make it off-planet before they find us. "She's turned around and is heading for the batarian, Commander. Her reactors are lighting my thermal view up like a Christmas tree."

"Get a good look at them, those scans might prove useful for later," Tali adds.

"You know, I'm not entirely sure I want to be getting in between these two, because - holy freaking _Christ_!" Joker's reply is interrupted by a sudden outburst that gives even Wrex pause.

"Joker? What's going on up there? Joker, come in." Shepard fumbles with her omni-tool's transmission controls. "Dammit, Shepard to _Normandy_, come in. Shepard to _Normandy_."

"Fuck!" Joker's voice is unusually strained as it finally returns through the crackle of static. "Whatever they are, they just took out that batarian cruiser in a single shot. You better get out of there, Commander, because I don't rate our chances very well going up against that thing if it decides to come after us."

A massive ship of unknown design.

Ridiculous power output.

The firepower to take out a _cruiser_ in a single shot.

My blood runs cold as I realize just _who_ that is in orbit.

"Commander?" I call, almost desperately. "We gotta go. We gotta go _now_."

"What?"

"I'll explain later. We've got to go."

She looks at me strangely, and for a moment I'm terrified that she'll question me, call me out on this sudden insight, but apparently the fear in my voice is enough to convince her that any line of questioning can wait until we're safely off this planet, and hopefully out of this solar system. She gives a brief nod and flicks her radio back onto the channel we share with the other squad and the _Normandy_. "Akameka, you read me? Drop what you're doing and double-time it back to the shuttle."

"Spectre, Akameka, copy. We're on our way."

"Wrex!" Shepard yells over at the big krogan who's having a field day just smashing up the place. "Time to go!"

He pauses and cranes his neck around, absently backhanding a geth trooper into the wall. "Already? The kid finished?"

"Yeah, I'm done," I confirm after a questioning look from Shepard.

"We've got batarians about to land on our heads and something going on in space," she explains as we head for his position.

"We're running from batarians?" Wrex asks incredulously.

"No, we're running from the big nasty ship that just smoked a batarian battlecruiser in a single shot."

"Oh." The krogan shrugs and starts jogging towards us. "We going to take it out?"

"Not from down here, we aren't," Shepard chuckles.

"All right. Up there, then?" Wrex sounds almost hopeful at the prospect of more destruction and dead batarians. I guess I can't fault him, _no one_ in the galaxy seems to like the batarians. Granted, it's mostly their own fault, but still...

"Commander." I point to the sky where a fireball is rapidly getting bigger. Goddamn batarians are making an unpowered re-entry. "We're about to have company."

She looks up through her helmet's visor, focusing on the tiny shape of the approaching ship for a split second, before snapping her head around. "Get inside, _now_! On the fucking double!"

Neither Wrex nor I are stupid enough to question her when she's using that tone of voice, and we start off at a dead run for the compound we came out of, spurred on by the crazy pace Shepard is setting ahead of us. We're barely at the large blast door leading into the compound's hangar when Shepard looks over her shoulder and throws herself forward.

"Hit the deck!"

A glance behind me finally tells why she was hurrying us along as a pair of torpedos released from the batarian frigate slams into the ground right on top of the communications relay, blasting the fragile structure into a million pieces. We're far enough from the shaped warheads to not be caught in the explosion, but the blast wave, even in this thin atmosphere, washes over us, crumpling parts of our armors and a piece of gravel hits my faceplate with an impossibly loud crack.

It leaves me breathing heavily and staring at a spider-webbing, palm-sized crack in the cover of my helmet that is about a micron from giving out, but hasn't. I hold my breath a second longer to get my heartrate under control and make sure that there isn't anything toxic inside my suit - though if there is, there's not a damn thing I can do about it anyway, if the thing's been breached.

Holy.

Fucking.

Cow.

I _hate_ these close calls. They're gonna be the end of me yet. Literally.

Before the dust has even settled, I can feel Shepard's hand on my arm, hauling me to my feet. "You both all right?" she asks over the radio, which is now a bit muffled from the distortion in the air. I just nod my head, while Wrex bellows an affirmative.

I wave my hands around, trying to clear out the dust in front of me as Shepard's form swims into view. "The fuck?" I manage to croak out.

"I guess they didn't take kindly to the destruction of one of their ships."

"But it wasn't us!"

"_You_ wanna go out there and tell _them_ that?"

I shudder briefly. "Not particularly, no."

"Then get your ass moving to the shuttle."

"Yes, ma'am."


	38. Chapter 38

**Author's** **Note: **Here's chapter 38, I hope you all enjoy. I'll be out of town for a few days next week, so I'm not sure what that'll do to my update schedule, but I'm hoping I can crank a chapter out amidst my travel.

**Chapter Thirty-Eight**

The batarian frigate, as it turns out, had bigger problems than us, because the _other_ batarian ship in orbit decided to get stupid and engage whatever had taken out its companion.

Batarian cruiser versus Collector ship?

I don't rate their chances as very good.

That's the only thing I can think of as the shuttle breaks atmo and makes a run for the _Normandy_. Joker is bringing her in on a high-altitude, high-velocity pass to scoop us up. It's a rather dangerous maneuver that I'm pretty sure our pilot isn't qualified for. Hell, I doubt even _Cortez_ would be qualified for that. But at the moment, as I keep watching the radar screen as the two batarians chase after the unknown contact, that's the least of my worries.

In fact, in some morbid way, I could really care less about what happens to them, because a tiny part of me is chanting, _please start shooting at them, please start shooting at them_, because every second that ship is shooting at _them_, it isn't shooting at _us_.

What disturbs me more is that the _Normandy_'s sensors can't get a good read on the unknown contact. It doesn't take long for us to be scooped up and come rushing into the CIC, but it's long enough for the other batarian cruiser to go down. The last batarian captain, the one who chases us from the surface, decides that discretion is the better part of valor and makes a run for the relay. He doesn't make it, and we have a front row seat on the _Normandy_'s tactical display as the unknown overtakes and burns down the batarian frigate.

Joker looks at the Commander, unsure of what to do, and every fiber of my being is telling me to yell at him to bring the ship about and make a break for it, but it won't do us any good. The Collectors have no problems penetrating the _Normandy_'s stealth systems, and they have no trouble catching up to us, either, so if we make a run for the mass relay, the unknown is sitting right in between us and it, just waiting to smoke us.

But we also can't stay here indefinitely.

I look up at Shepard and the very same argument is currently playing out in her head. It's visible in her eyes, the way they flicker across the display and the sparse sensor readings we have. Even in the canon confrontation, the _Normandy_ actually was able to get sensor reads on the Collectors. The fact that we can't see much beyond a fuzzy outline just raises my panic level another three notches.

"Commander?" Joker asks from the cockpit. "Should we engage or get out of here?"

Shepard just keeps staring at the hologram as if a solution would magically present itself. Naturally, it doesn't, which has all of us agitated, because none of us are used to seeing the action-oriented, always with a plan Commander Shepard so indecisive. Not that I can fault her for that, but it's unsettling when your own insecurities are backed up by someone else's.

"Commander?" Joker repeats over his shoulder.

And then she does the most terrifying thing she could have, one that tells me that Q's prophecy has come true and that I've let slip a little too much, a little too soon.

She looks at _me_.

_Fuck_.

Slowly at first, one by one the rest of her crew look at me. Kaidan, then Tali, Garrus, even Wrex. One by one, they look from the Commander over to me as she fixates me with a stare, as if she could drag a solution to our problem from me by sheer force of will.

And as much as I want to tell her what I know, I'm frozen with the indecision, because despite everything I know about what's about to come, about the Collectors, and everything else, none of that is going to do us a lick of good in this situation. None of it is any practical use, and we're dead either way. We can't outrun them, and we certainly can't fight them. Not without a hell of a lot of upgrades, and I doubt they're going to give us time to discover the secrets of the Thanix Cannon before blowing us out of space.

We're fucked.

And I hate having to be the one to make this call, because I know that no matter what, it's going to end badly. This is _exactly_ what I've been terrified of for the past few weeks, this exact scenario. I had hoped it wouldn't come to pass, that I'd changed enough things to prevent this from happening, but like everything else in life, it decides to throw a giant, cosmic _fuck-you_ at you for your troubles.

To be honest, I gave up on trying to figure this one out, because no matter what plans I came up with, the _Normandy_ doesn't stand a chance against an enemy who out-guns us, out-powers us, and can out-run us. This isn't a matter of David versus Goliath, it's bloody David against a Goliath in a fucking Leopard II assault tank and air support. We've got nothing, _nothing_, that can hurt them, and taking a hit from them means pretty much instant death. There's no exhaust shaft to send proton torpedos down into, no open superstructure to cruise into to blow up their reactor, no secret way to hack into their computer systems and cause them to shut down. The only way to kill that ship is more firepower than we have.

To make things worse, we're nowhere near Alchera, so I have no idea if history is even going to repeat itself if we _do_ go down here.

"Grayson?" Shepard asks me quietly, and suddenly I realize that everyone is _still_ staring at me, while my eyes are glued to the holographic display of the enemy ship. "Run or fight?"

I open my mouth, hoping that something, _anything_ will come out, but the words stubbornly remain unsaid.

"Hey," the Commander leans over and looks at me. "Patrick, you all right?"

I raise my hand a little, surprised at her gentle tone, then realize that my hand is trembling. But it's not just my hand, I'm shaking like a leaf. So much, in fact, that everyone seems to have noticed.

"You know something about this, Grayson?" Kaidan asks carefully. I'm pretty sure my reaction already gave away the answer.

"We can't stay here," I whisper. "But we can't fight them. Not now, not yet, we're not ready. But we can't run."

"They can catch us?" Tali picks up on it. "That's...problematic."

"How dangerous?" Shepard asks, and I'm not sure what to say. "How dangerous, Grayson?" she repeats.

"Deadly. Lethal. Single shot, goes right through the _Normandy_'s kinetic barriers and ablative armor. Hull to hull, with power to spare."

As if the room wasn't silent enough, my announcement makes the prior silence sound deafening. They don't need me to prove it; the footage and sensor logs of the destruction of the three batarian warships speaks for itself. The batarians never even got off a single shot.

It's Garrus who breaks it first. "Can we make a run past them running silent?"

"They'll see right through our stealth systems. I don't know how, but I have the funny feeling that it's not going to be much of a hindrance."

Shepard looks away from me and at the tactical display, and I let out a little sigh of relief. At least I'm not the focus of her attention anymore. I can see the proverbial gears turning in her head; now that she has some idea of what we're up against, her tactical mind is going into overdrive, plotting solutions and discarding them almost faster than anyone else can comprehend. This is what she does best, figure out solutions against impossible odds. It feels almost cathartic to let someone else do the figuring out for a change.

"The moon of the third planet," she mutters. "If we can swing by it and hide in its shadow..."

"If they are who I think they are," I add, "then their primary weapon is going to have a frontal firing arc, I'd guess maybe a one-twenty degree cone. If we can stay out of that, then we might have a chance. The problem comes when we're trying to get past them, they can just take their sweet time and line up a kill shot."

Shepard's eyes flash over to me again. "You're saying the only thing we have to watch out for is that front firing arc?"

"Not necessarily. They've got other emplacements, but nothing that'll instantly kill this ship." I shrug and look back down at the display. "But we still can't fight them. Our weapons aren't going to be able to break their barriers."

A little grin starts spreading across her lips as the look in Shepard's eyes turns almost feral. "We don't have to. We just have to make them _think_ we are going to." She turns around and heads to the cockpit. "Joker!" she bellows, "bring us around, full speed, past the third planet, then go silent until they come after us. I want to be on that ship's tail, sticking to them like a bad rash, you got it?"

All of us are too disciplined and too used to her to even question her orders and whatever miraculous strategy she just conjured seemingly out of thin air. "Aye, Commander," he replies and the deck plating of the _Normandy_ is shifting almost before she's finished her order as he guns the throttle.

"You going to clue us in?" Garrus asks in amusement.

"We can't run," the Commander explains curtly from her position standing behind Joker and looking over his shoulder at the sensor screen. "That would expose us to their weapons. But we don't have to _run_ from in _front_."

That last part has her looking straight at me again, and slowly, a crazy grin is making its way onto _my_ face, as well, because something I told her almost impossibly long ago is clicking. This is absolutely, utterly _crazy_, it's harebrained and suicidal, but it actually has a chance of working and us getting away.

Garrus follows her gaze and tilts his head at me funnily. I guess I should explain.

"The SpecOps tenet. _You follow best by following from in front, thus your prey never knows that he is not actually the predator_. The point is that you establish yourself in a position that is unlike what the target is expecting."

"Correct," Shepard adds, "and they sure as hell won't be expecting us coming for them guns blazing and trying to chase _them_ to the mass relay." The CIC darkens a little as the ambient light from the sun is cut off as we approach the planet and Joker starts shutting down nonessential systems. "Good, good," the Commander notes.

The little blip on the sensor display halts and then tentatively moves closer. I'm guessing even the Collectors want to see what we're up to. It's not like they're not confident in their ability to take us, after all.

"Six hundred thousand kilometers," Pressly announces. "And closing fast."

"Tali, Grayson, engineering. Tell Adams that I want this ship to run everything redline, dump the heat sinks, anything to make us look like a fucking _star_ on their scanners, on my mark. Got it?"

"Aye, Commander," I snap on reflex, echoed by Tali's "Yes, Shepard."

As we head down towards Engineering, Tali looks at me, her head tilted slightly in curiousity. "Humans have an interesting dynamic."

"Hm?" Shepard's plan is complete and utter insanity...and nothing less than I would have expected from her. She's practically the only one capable of pulling off something worthy of the Legendary Commander Cain, and this is about as bloody crazy as running a battlestar right in between three Cylon baseships. At point-blank range. And then firing high-yield nuclear warheads at them. Under ordinary circumstances, I really wouldn't put odds on this working, but with Shepard at the helm...let's just say that woman has both Creed's tactical genius and the luck of the gods on her side.

"In the quarian fleet, something like this would be unheard of," she explains gamely. "A superior officer arguing such an impossible tactic? Our race is too thinly spread, and our admirals too conservative." There's a slight mix of amusement and annoyance in her tone as she discusses her people's policies, something that's vaguely indicative of her future confrontations with the quarian leadership about their methods.

"Yeah, well, that's Shepard for you, I guess," I tell her absently.

We head into engineering to find Adams already working furiously and barking orders to his three-man staff. He looks up briefly, nods at us, and waves us over. "What's the plan?"

"Turn up everything on the Commander's order. Full power output, she's trying to make us look bigger than we really are," I tell him briefly. The chief engineer looks over at the Tantalus core sitting in its alcove, a little grin on his lips.

"Guess it's about time to see what this baby is capable of, eh? All right. Miss Zorah, Grayson, hop to it. Weapons and engines. I want their safeties removed, overvoltage protection off, and ready to take as much current as they can before frying."

Like with everything that's ever been built, a lot of effort went into making the operation of the Tantalus drive core safe and reliable and, in the process, ended up shackling its potential. Which is a good thing, because going by the math alone, this thing's potential could produce a pretty decently-sized singularity. Fortunately, it's also a lot easier to make things _un-_safe than it is to make them safe in the first place, because it isn't long before Shepard calls in over the intercom.

"Shepard to engineering. How're we looking?"

"Ready," Tali chimes from her place across the cramped room, her three-digited hands flying through the holographic interfaces with a speed and grace that makes every other person in here, including Adams, look sluggish.

"Ready," I echo, and our chief takes this as his clue to flip on the comm.

"We're set, Commander. Give the word, and this ship's going to light up like a Christmas tree."

"Get ready to engage." Shepard's voice suddenly comes from speakers all over the ship as she switches from her direct line to the intercom and the action stations klaxon begins to sound. "All hands, this is the Commander. Prepare for combat operations. Auxiliary personnel to their stations. Secure the outer bulkheads and suit up."

And just like that, the usually quiet ship is filled with movement and action as crewmembers rush to their posts, the gunners manning the GARDIAN emplacements and the gunnery chief arming and prepping the disruptor torpedos in the adjacent armory. The white neon lights dim and are replaced by a darker, blue light and the intensity of all holographic interfaces increases as the ship goes into combat mode.

"Two hundred thousand klicks and closing fast, Commander," Joker reports over shipwide as Shepard leaves a channel open for the rest of us to listen to the action in the CIC. "They're swinging around the moon."

"Gun crews, weapons check," the Commander orders.

A chorus of affirmatives comes in as the batteries report readiness. Despite the fact that the _Normandy_ is more of a special purpose infiltration and reconnaissance vessel, the Alliance made sure that the personnel are combat trained, and they go about their duties with typical military efficiency, and it only takes a few seconds before we know that every single weapon on this ship is ready to fight.

"She's clearing the horizon, commander."

"Bring us about, flank speed. Gun crews, acquire targets. Fire on my mark."

I glance over at Tali who is working a console over, and after a brief look of understanding, she brings up a copy of the sensor displays from the CIC. As the _Normandy_ barrels through space towards the unknown, her scanners reach out ahead, trying to determine shape and size, power output and weapons capabilities. As the scan lines slowly resolve themselves into the wireframe diagram of a vessel, I hold my breath, hoping that, perhaps by some miracle, it isn't the Collectors.

But as the signal resolves off their shielded hull, that possibility disaappears as the cylindrical ship comes into full view, its miships-mounted array of weapons bristling and glowing in preparation. The schematic also gives us a very good view of its primary cannon barrel, the one that guts the _Normandy_ so easy in two shots in the canon game and that just vaped three batarian warships without breaking a sweat.

"That looks like it could do some damage," Adams muses as he stands behind us, his eyes never leaving the various displays and readouts on the ship's performance, only sparing the briefest of looks down at our screens.

He's got no idea how right he is about that. As the Collector ship closes in, my heartbeat starts picking up as it finally sinks in that this may very well be it. The decisive event that determines if I've screwed up the Mass Effect universe beyond help and salvation, or if we can actually get away with it. If the _Normandy _goes down and Shepard dies and things go horribly wrong...

I don't want to think about it. Of course, there's still the chance that we could get away and things _still_ go horribly wrong, but with Shepard alive, that chance is much more manageable.

"Weapons range in twenty seconds, Commander."

"Get ready to go evasive. Keep us out of that front arc at any cost. We want to be the ones chasing them."

"Chase, rather than be chased," Joker confirms. "Got it."

I flip on my comm to the CIC. "She's hostile, Commander. Don't hold back."

The comment is, for the most part, unecessary, because Shepard is in full threat mode; the three burning warships in orbit have seen to that. I just wanted to make sure she pulls a Kirk and not a Picard, I guess. When it comes to the Collectors, it'd be best if we shot first, shot some more, and then asked questions afterwards, _after_ we're far, far away from them.

There's no reply from her, but I know she heard me. And then, just about ten second later, the _Normandy_'s Tantalus core steps into action as Joker firewalls the throttle, sending the _Normandy _spiralling towards the Collectors, and Shepard issues a single order.

"Fire at will."

"You heard the Commander, let's light 'er up!" Adams roars over the sudden, high-pitched report of the GARDIANS and the whine of the drive core.

And just like that, it's time to go to work as Tali and I systematically toggle all safeties off and turn on every single nonessential system while keeping an eye on the ship's computing and power resources. Making the _Normandy_ appear like a much bigger ship in the age of thermal and laser scanners is actually much easier than in the olden days of visual identification. Relying on thermal sensors means that if you put out enough heat, you can appear to have a much bigger ship. Likewise, running a stronger gravity drive means you can have the footprint of a cruiser instead of a frigate.

But all that doesn't do you a lick of good if it overloads the systems and leaves you dead in space after you turn on everything.

The ride is pretty smooth, smoother than you'd think it would be, considering who we're up against, but I guess that's a good sign, because it means we're not getting hit. It also means that the inertial absorption system that cancels out sudden impulses and accelerations to the ship still works, unlike in Star Trek, where every time they get hit, they go flying about.

Which, in real life, would mean they'd go splat anytime they were moving at close to relativistic speeds. But I digress. Where was I? Oh, right, we haven't got hit yet, as the main status display of the ship is still a nice, healthy green and the barriers are up and pulsing strong.

"Brace for incoming fire!"

And then suddenly it all goes to hell.

You know how in the movies consoles always explode into a shower of sparks and sends people flying to their deaths? Yeah, that doesn't actually happen. In fact, well-designed consoles will have _fuses_ that'll blow before a power surge manages to fry the operator. Of course, Mass Effect-style consoles have another advantage: they're holographic, so the worst that can happen is the projector and control interface short out.

So the sparks flying and sending people hurling about doesn't actually happen, and as theatrical as it may be, what actually _does_ happen a few heartbeats after Joker's frantic announcement is even more terrifying.

The entire engine room dims and a piercing shriek of shearing and twisting metal reverberates around us as the power cuts out momentarily before switching to backups. The lights come back on a second later, dimmed, but that's not the worst. Looking over at the source of that horrific sound, through the corridor, for a split second I can see the inky blackness of space rotating before me as Joker rolls the ship. And the worst is the screaming on the other side of the engineering bulkhead, the one that leads out to the shuttle hangar, and the clattering of metal as the blast door seals automatically to prevent decompression.

"Hull breaches!" Adams roars, springing into action with the practiced ease of someone who is used to crisis. "Fontaine, Delera, suit up!"

The two soldiers in engineering react almost immediately, sealing their rebreathers and stepping through the blast door into the airlock towards the decompressed section. Adams catches me looking after them, then shakes his head briefly. I don't have to be a mind reader to know he can tell what I'm thinking. It wasn't a direct hit, but the way everything cut off so abruptly, there's little chance of survivors.

"Eyes forward, Grayson. Focus on keeping this ship in one piece."

Then suddenly, there's a deep thrumming that reverberates across the deck plating as the main forward batteries open up, spitting long trails of superheated plasma and high-caliber slugs at their target. I'll give the turians one thing...they know how to build a spaceframe. It may not have been the crippling first hit the _Normandy_ would have suffered above Alchera, the one that guts its starboard wing and devastates its maneuverability, but even a glancing hit from the Collector's primary weapon is nothing to sneeze at.

Considering the fact that we just lost all telemetry from the shuttle bay and every indicator there is blinking an angry red, it's a miracle this fucking deck is still in one piece, much less that the main battery is still capable of firing.

Amidst all the shouting and klaxons that are blaring, next to me Tali is going about her business in an incredibly controlled fashion. There is urgency in her movements, but no panic as she deftly shifts power to vital systems, seals off decks, and redistributes ship's resources as if this was a routine operation and not the middle of combat with an enemy that can take apart this ship in a few hits.

The Tantalus core whines in protest as Joker overdraws the engines, causing the lights everywhere to dim and an angry whine to sound from the main reactor as it is cajoled into putting out more power than the circuits were designed to handle. Part of me feels really stupid for being here, because it wants to know what the hell is going on. I'm an engineer, I know, but this...sitting around and trying to minimize damage and optimize ship's performance on the fly, it's mostly automated, unless you're a genius like Tali who can do it all in her head faster than the stupid computer.

What I'm doing is just making sure that the computer doesn't screw up. And I _really_ want to know what's going on, what the ship's doing, what Shepard's plan is, because I just feel _helpless_ down here.

The ship lurches, and while the inertial compensators - thank you, Star Trek, for forever coining that term and associating it with a rather useless descriptive of what it does - while they manage to keep us all from going splat, there's a certain part of your brain that just _knows_ it was supposed to experience an acceleration. It's a weird kind of vertigo, and it's a bit like pulling a high gee turn when you feel you should've left your guts behind, but didn't.

I can just imagine what the cinematic of this would look like in the game, all graceful and beautiful in that typical Bioware fashion that makes them such great storytellers as the _Normandy_ soars on ahead, her hull ablaze with weapons fire as every emplacement opens up and her stern glowing as Joker redlines the throttle, trying to get us in close with the Collectors. The ship majestically swerves around to avoid incoming fire, banking a little as it takes a glancing blow but forges on, only momentarily disturbed by the impact to its hull, pouncing on its much more massive foe like a wounded hawk.

It's very...clean, very sterile, very descriptive, and yet so very removed from the actuality of _being_ in said battle. That the little shudder you see go through the _Normandy_ and don't think much of in the cutscene is actually a breach of its barriers and hull, sucking crewmen and equipment out into the cold vacuum of space, that every time Joker doesn't make a jink or a juke in time, someone potentially dies and the ship comes one step closer to meeting its date with destiny and destruction.

But ironically, it's the very thought of how this would look in the game, the very removal from reality that keeps me sane right now, because there's so much going on my brain is refusing to process most of it. Between Adams yelling and Tali calmly delivering status reports, between the broken transmissions from the bridge and the screams of crewmen trying to put out fires and seal off breaches, between the thunder of the guns and the rending tears of armor, there's really nothing you can do but function on autopilot. The _Normandy_ is taking a lot more hits now as she closes in with the Collector ship and their smaller weapons can lock on and track, but we're out of their main firing arc, and the barriers are holding, for the most part.

I just really hope that Shepard's ruse is going to work, because if it doesn't, then we'll have to think of a Plan B fast. On the Commander's urging, the gunners keep pounding the larger ship, pelting it with everything from anti-capitalship missiles to the anti-fighter defensive weapons. Every piece of offensive ordnance we can throw at them, and then some. It's gotta be enough. We don't need much, just enough to make them think we're a credible threat, and turn around.

Of course, if they're actually _willing_ to engage us here, then all that goes down the drain.

Positive thoughts, come on, positive thoughts. This is going to work. Shepard's plans always work, right?

I'm so lost in staring at the readouts and sensor display that I don't notice Adams calling my name until his hand lands on my shoulder. "Grayson!" he practically hollers into my ear over the blare of some alarm klaxon or another. They're coming on and getting shut off every couple of seconds now as we overdrive systems that were never meant to take that kind of abuse. "We lost the main battery's primary power coupling, take Geralds and see what you can do."

Without even bothering to wait for my reply, he shoves a toolkit into my hand and rushes away. Before I even realize it, I'm by the hatch, meeting an older engineer whom I vaguely recognize from the noon shift there. We don't need to exchange words or pleasantries, we have our orders. The main battery isn't far away, literally up the corridor and down the fork. As we pass it, I can't help but throw a look at the bulkhead that now seals off the shuttle bay, where we took the hit earlier. It's buckled slightly, warped from heat, but otherwise nondescript. No indication of what's going on behind it whatsoever. The two crewmen Adams sent out earlier haven't reported back yet, either, so perhaps that's good news.

Or perhaps they're gone, too.

Fuck.

Geralds punches in the code to unlock the hatch and the two of us step into the main battery. It's not any quieter in here than it is in engineering. Gunners are rushing about, priming torpedos and plotting targeting solutions. A couple of consoles are conspicuously dark, corresponding with areas on the _Normandy_'s status display that are red or greyed out. Emplacements that have been damaged or destroyed.

One of the gun captains wastes no time in signalling us over and pointing towards the ship's portside cannon. Two of the gunners are huddling around an open panel, using their omni-tools to diagnose the damage.

Just looking at it from here and smelling the burnt circuitry and the power going through the main conduits towards the accelerator coils, I have a suspicion of what might have happened. Geralds sweeps his omni-tool over it, and, after a second, confirms my thoughts. "Burnt out power converter. It won't initiate the firing sequence without power to the relays."

In theory, this is an easy fix. I mean, this is a weapon on a warship, it's designed to be an easy fix. Take out the broken part, get a spare from the hold, and drop it in. Easily done, right? Except for the fact that our cargo hold just took a direct hit. We do keep spare parts elsewhere, and I head over to the locker to rifle through them. Calm down. This is just like any other fix you've done on this ship. Ignore the fact that we're in a space battle with a good chance of being blown to smithereens, just focus on the task at hand.

A tremor runs through the deck plating as the starboard cannon opens up, the massive slug hurling down the channel beneath our feet. Geralds is already waving me over to bring the toolbox. It's literally just three, four steps across the room from where I'm standing.

It's a quick fix, just unplug the old module and plug in the new, and we're back in the fight. Well, more in the fight than we are now, with only one working main gun. We're doing good so far, right? To be honest, I have no way of telling _how _we're doing, but I suppose the fact that we haven't been blown out of space is a good sign. Who knows, we might even get away with this.

And then reality comes a-knockin' with a rather rude wakeup call.

Suddenly, with a great rending cry, the deck suddenly opens up, splitting down from the bow of the ship almost like the hull is a banana being peeled open. It carves almost right down the middle, from between both barrels and angling away towards the portside hull as a glowing yellow beam intersects with the _Normandy_'s flight path, bypassing her barriers as easily as a hot knife going through butter. It's accompanied by the sudden rush of air as the entire main battery is breached to vacuum followed by a brilliant flash of light as it superheats and expands, billowing towards us in a cloud of fire and plasma, and next to me even the hardened gun crew is standing in muted horror as we watch the beam inch closer towards us. It's not hot, not even warm, as one might expect from their imminent incineration by some ancient, gargantuan plasma beam.

And then the adrenaline kicks in, and there's this little voice that's screaming inside your head. _Move, you damn idiot, move!_ Throwing myself backwards, away from the beam, I scrambled to get as far away from the destruction as I can and latch onto the railing to avoid getting sucked out by the vacuum left from the initial blast. Part of me realizes it's futile, of course, because what difference do a few meters make when it comes to a weapon of that size? You can't outrun it, but some base instinct urges you to _try_, anyway.

Before I know it, the rush of air stops and the pull on my limbs lessens. The beam cuts out and so does all sound as the air is gone from the compartment. I lift my head a little slugglishly, not really quite sure if I'm dreaming. If I am, this is a hell of a nightmare, but from the way my heart is pounding and my fingers are chilling, it probably is all too real. Miraculously, we're still alive. Most of us, at any rate. The dim glow of molten and slagged metal just ahead of me, almost right where the raised platform in the rear of the main battery ends, is where the beam stopped. The twisted and deformed cloud of metal droplets are the only testament to Geralds and the two gunners that were just working on the port battery. Even with only orange glow of quickly cooling molten metal to provide the only light, it isn't hard to tell that whatever - or _whoever_ - was just a couple of steps away from us is gone. And beyond that...I'm looking down at where the floor used to be and the only thing that's there is the vast emptiness of space.

The reality of the situation sinks in, and despite the fact that we survived the almost impossible, there's another problem. The blast doors closed and locked to protect the rest of the ship from decompression, and we're stuck in a rapidly airless room with only our standard-issue vac-seals protecting us from suffocation. The kinetic barriers holding in the air around our heads only have a limited supply, about five minutes' worth for the gunners. But as quickly as this section is cooling to near absolute zero, that won't be a problem for long, because we're going to freeze into goddamn human popsicles before the air becomes a problem.

Fuck.

That's pretty much the only thought percolating in my head right now.

Just...fuck.


	39. Chapter 39

**Author's** **Note: **Wow...this has been a very long time in coming, mostly because real life's been keeping me more than busy, between school, work, and projects, as well as running a Kickstarter, it's just been eating away all of my time, so updates will come a little slower, probably a lot slower than they have been, at least till everything winds down by the end of May.

**Chapter Thirty-Nine**

The adrenaline kicks in, warring for a brief moment with the _I-have-no-idea-how-to-get-out-of-this-just-let-me- sit-down-and-die_ attitude that grabs a violent hold of you in situations like these, when you just want to throw in the towel because it seems like such an insurmountable task to just take another breath. Fight or flight. That's what's bred into us, but this time there's no option, no choice. It's fight or _die_.

It only lasts for a split second before the latter curls up and goes into a corner to pout.

Guess some off Shepard's stubbornness is rubbing off on me, I'll have to remember to thank her for that if we ever make it through this. With a low hiss, my helmet seals and the armor's internal air scrubbers start drawing from the emergency oxygen supply, bringin in fresh air to my face.

All right. _Think_. _Analyze_. _React_. The compartment is bleeding heat as fast as it's bleeding air. And after the air is gone...radiation equalizes temperature differentials as the fourth power of the temperature difference. Which is a good three hundred degrees Kelvin, so about...damn, think, brain, what's the black body emissivity of a human body? About an hour, I think, but the _Normandy_'s heat radiators are on full blast to the point of almost melting our heat vents, that buys us some time. Okay. We're still running out of air. Solutions. The gunners in here don't have much time, since none of them are wearing any sort of EVA gear.

The blast door is shut, for good reason. We're decompressing here, but I'm pretty sure I can hack it. That'll take us out into the corridor between the armory, the cargo hold, engineering, and the main battery. The bulkhead to the cargo hold is already shut. If I can close the others, I can make us a makeshift airlock. The ship's air exchangers shouldn't have too much of a problem repressurizing the corridor, and every compartment on this ship is sealed air tight. That is, of course, assuming the damn corridor is still intact. I have no idea what the damage to the rest of the ship is, but this wasn't a glancing hit. Pretty sure we took a damn hard hit to port.

And even worse, _engineering_ is to port.

Adams and Tali.

It'll take a minor miracle for me to do it in time, but hey, we survived getting shot by the Collector's beam weapon, so there.

The omni-tool is up and grinding its way through the _Normandy_'s emergency combat protocols before I even reach the door, waving over the surviving gunners. One of them taps me on the shoulder, then his ear, indicating his radio's blown and he can't hear anything. Not surprising, considering how close we came to a ridiculously powerful electric charge. It's a testament to Cerberus's ingenuity that my omni-tool's still working.

It doesn't take long before I have door controls, but by then we're all shivering, and my hands are barely wanting to move. With a creak, the blast door opens. I hope I did the hack right and no one noticed something was awry and tried to override my lockout on the Deck Three hatches, because if they did...let's just say we'd probably lose this entire deck. Violently.

The seven of us stumble out into the corridor amidst the onrush of air, and the gun captain slams down on the door controls, shutting the hatch behind us with a harsh metallic clang. That's good, we've still got sound, so there's air here. When the ringing in my ears finally stops, I can make out the rumble of the ship's air converters trying to replenish the low oxygen levels in this compartment. A brief glance over at engineering reveals absolutely _nothing_. Dammit. My comm's out and they're all going to be busy in there.

I can hear the damage control crews rushing around above us, but really, what can you do when you get hit by shit that vaporizes your armor plating and outer hull without even trying? Try and weld the hull breach shut with a nanowelder?

Yeah, right.

At this point, it's really more about keeping the damn ship together till we can hit the mass relay more than anything else. Pulling up a ship's status display from the console in the hallway, I can tell that we are, in fact, in the process of losing this fight.

Very badly.

Joker, as great a pilot as he is, can't keep this ship out of their firing arcs forever, especially if we want to keep moving towards the relay, and I'm guessing the Collectors really didn't buy Shepard's ruse for long. Not that we could've kept it up in the long run, but it couldn't hurt to hope.

Where do I go?

What do I do?

_Fuck_, I hate feeling this useless.

All right, first things first.

I hammer in the code for the engineering bulkhead, and it lifts up reluctantly. The compartment is bathed in the red glows of shit going wrong and equipment complaining about being abused and broken. Nothing new there. Fortunately, this thing's built a hell of a lot tougher than the _Enterprise_, or we would've been space debris long ago.

"... enough power to make the jump?" Shepard's voice comes over the intercom.

Adams barely glances at us as we troop into the already crowded engine room while he consults the master display and his omni-tool. "If we cut weapons, maybe."

"We need weapons operational, Adams. If we stop shooting for a second-"

"I'm giving it all she's got, Commander, but our barriers are overloaded, half the circuitry on this deck is blown out, and the only reason this ship is still flying under its own power is because the damn drive core doesn't care if we radiate half of its generated antiparticles into vacuum." Adams doesn't yell, doesn't raise his voice beyond what is necessary to be heard over the din, but the urgency is clear in his tone.

I guess I can help with that. "The guns aren't going to be a problem," I tell him, stepping into the conversation in the bull-headed manner I tend to fall back into when things go wrong. What can I say? I want to get out of this shit alive, and I don't have the patience to be nice and polite. Tea and crumpets didn't work on fucking Saren, and they sure as fuck won't work on the Collectors. "We just lost the main battery," I add in way of explanation.

The engineer only doesn't even bat an eye at that, although he does tense up. But Shepard beats him to the reply. "Can we get it operational again?" she asks.

I know she doesn't mean it like that, she doesn't know that we almost just got barbecued and then sucked out into vacuum, or that we almost froze to death, but I can't help the slightly snarky reply that slips out. "The battery is _gone_, Commander. Gutted and shot to pieces from a direct hit."

There's a long pause on the comm as it sinks in.

"Shit."

Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.

"How're we looking on engine power, Adams?" Shepard finally asks.

The engineer barely even glances at his readouts. "Barely enough to spool up the drives. I'm more concerned about the ship holding together through the jump. We've taken some major structural damage along the ventral supports."

"Will she hold together through the jump?"

"Maybe." Adams shrugs. "Can't really tell till we try."

"Grayson, get up here. Adams, just keep her together. I'm counting on you and Tali."

It's the quarian who replies for them both, in a surprisingly human fashion. "You got it, Shepard."

T

The ship's upper decks don't look too bad - I can see why Shepard didn't think much of the damage; a lot of it probably wasn't even felt up here. The CIC is bustling with activity as gunners try to coordinate, the long rows of emplacements between the main war center and the cockpit shouting out a cacophony of firing solutions, salvo orders, and target callouts. In between that there's aides dashing back and forth, relaying messages and new sensor information to the command staff and to the cockpit. Joker's doing his best to keep us out of the line of fire, but without the SR-2's shielding upgrades, we don't really stand much of a chance in a direct firefight. Hell, the _Normandy_ gets shot down even with most of the upgrades, and I think the only way to keep the ship in one piece in Mass Effect 2 is to get them _all_.

Yeah.

The _Normandy_ shifts slightly under my feet as Joker coaxes the engines beyond the redline. Shepard, Kaidan, and Garrus are all standing in the corridor behind him; the turian is doing his best to plot firing solutions for the gunners, while Kaidan does his best to keep Shepard informed of what's going on with the rest of the ship. It's not hard to see just why this is the Alliance's crack team, the way they seamlessly work together. Jane Shepard may be a groundpounder at heart, but she's taken to command of a starship like a fish to water, and whatever she's missing, Pressly - no matter how grouchy he is - picks up on. The man's good at his job, no matter what you might say about his personality.

The Commander waves me over and pulls me aside. "You _know_ something. I don't care what it is, I'll deal with that later. What do you know?"

The level tone of her voice scares me almost more than if she'd just yelled at me, because I know that Shepard's quiet fury is worse than just about anything else in this universe. It's my mistake, though, I let it slip in my panic about the Collector ship. I thought we were safe, I didn't make backup plans...hell, I didn't even know where to _start_ making backup plans for this occurrence.

And what's worse is that despite everything I know about the Reapers and the Collectors, I got nothing. No idea how to get us out of this, because to be frank, we're out-gunned, out-powered, and just out-matched on so many levels it's not even remotely funny. We can't run, we can't hide, we can't fight. Dammit, now would be the time to pull a Commander Cain, but all I'm drawing is a blank. Shepard realizes the same thing as she looks at my blank look, and with an expression somewhere between resignation and disgust, shoves me aside to make it to the cockpit, a split-second decision made.

"Joker!" she hollers. "Full throttle, leg it towards the relay."

"No!" I call out in a panic. There's this dreadful feeling that if we head that way, they're going to catch us and blow us out of the sky. I don't know where this absolute and utter certainty of that is coming from, but I'm not questioning it right now. Shepard turns to look at me skeptically, as does Pressly. Even Joker stills momentarily.

"We won't make it to the relay," I tell Shepard, knowing full well that the entire CIC can hear me. But right now, I don't really care, because the only thing in my mind is the looming premonition of all of our imminent deaths if we try and make a break for it. "They're going to catch us. I don't think we can take another hit like that," I add softly, trying to urge Shepard to reconsider.

She stares at me for a moment, a long, heart-pounding moment, and gives a curt nod. "Take us down into atmo, see if you can set us down somewhere they can't follow," she tells Joker. As the ship turns around and burns hard for the nearest moon, I sink back against the wall, hoping I haven't just screwed us over once again.

"They're following, Commander."

"Just stay ahead of them. Just keep pushing that throttle."

"She's gonna fly apart, Commander."

"Better from us hitting atmo than from us being shot to pieces, Joker."

Wait.

_Hitting atmo_.

I bring up the _Normandy_'s engineering display up on my omni-tool. "Commander!" I call out as a crazy idea formulates itself in my head.

"Not now, Grayson."

"I think I have an idea."

She turns around and looks at me over her shoulder, then tilts her head, towards the cockpit. I step into the cramped space, trying to ignore space as it is spinning before my very eyes in a vertigo-inducing caleidoscope. "I'm listening."

"Unpowered re-entry," I tell her.

"What?"

"The ship chasing us...it can't make a deadstick reentry. It's using retro-thrust to enter atmo. No aerobraking, no glide, no anti-grav capabilities that I know of. It's got to slow down, point its thrust downward, and then come down near vertical," I explain as I try and dig up what I remember from the Collector ship landing and taking off from Horizon's surface. "We, on the other hand..."

"We can hit atmo hard. Use the barriers to bleed heat, come down faster, and get away from them," Shepard finishes, but I shake my head in negative. It's not that she's wrong, but...

"That'll only delay the inevitable. They're going to find us one way or the other, even if they have to keep hovering in orbit for days, and we can't outrun them having to take off from the surface. But we _can_ do a low-angle unpowered entry. Force them into reentry mode, bleed off velocity. Once they're committed, we lower our angle of descent, use the kinetic barriers to shield us, and skip off atmo and around towards the relay. Put the horizon between us and them."

"That's crazy."

Of course I know it's crazy. But I'm entirely out of ideas, and it doesn't look like Shepard has any more options available to her, either. I can tell she's weighing the risk versus the potential of us getting away. It's a dangerous maneuver. I've run enough unpowered reentry calculations to know just _how_ crucial timing and perfect alignment are. Your window of opportunity is a couple of degrees at best. Too low, you get flung off or, worst case, crushed by atmospheric pressure. Too high, and your reentry turns into a flaming inferno as you fall from the sky. No matter how advanced your anti-grav technology or exotic matter drives, you can't create a gravity well the size of a Tantalus core and use it to power descent without causing severe tectonic instabilities. So good old powered retro-thrust is it. Either that, or a deadstick unpowered reentry.

"I'm out of ideas, Commander," I tell her quietly.

And I know she gets the message. That I really don't know anything else. That's the best I can give her. But she's still wrestling with it, because we both know that the _Normandy_ can enter atmo and hide long before the Collectors can find us, giving us some time to figure out a new way off this rock.

The question is...are the Collectors indiscriminately killing every ship they come across here, or are they here for _us_? I can't help but think they're hunting the _Normandy_, there's no other reason for them to be out here, at the ass-end of nowhere, not when by right now they should be busy striking deals with the Blue Suns in the Terminus Systems.

"I can do it, Commander," Joker says from his chair. He never takes his eyes off the screens in front of him as his fingers dance nimbly across the ship's controls. "With the damage to Deck Three, I don't know if I can get her back off the surface if we land."

Shepard looks from him to me, then gives a curt nod and flips her comm to shipwide. "All hands, this is Commander Shepard. All nonessential personnel evacuate Deck Three. Engineering and damage control crews, seal off all essential bulkheads and initiate emergency breaching procedures."

"You sure about this, Commander?" Kaidan asks from behind us.

She looks at me and over at Joker again. "Best chance we got. Bring her in, Joker."

"Here we go."

T

The _Normandy_, like any other Alliance frigate, is designed to be capable of atmospheric re-entry. Mostly because they're used for close air-support and ground assault missions if the need calls for it, and because they're the primary way to deploy shock troops and ground forces into areas too hostile for shuttles. In the age of powered interstellar spaceflight, though, the preferred method of reentry is powered; it's the main reason ships like the _Normandy_ have thrusters, other than low-speed maneuvering.

In theory, a powered entry is very easy. Match the orbital velocity of the ship to the rotational speed of the surface below and gradually decelerate the vessel until it sort of spirals down. The more thrust you have available, the faster you can go down. The nice thing about it is that it only requires a huge amount of thrust, which is readily available, and very little thermal shielding which would otherwise take up precious room.

The problem with it is that it means even a small ship like the SR-1 can't really do an unpowered reentry _because_ it doesn't have any thermal protection. Think of the space shuttle. _Columbia_ went down because of a minute fault in their ablative tiling. The plasma generated around a deadstick entry vessel is hot enough to actually eat its way through titanium. Usually, the kinetic barriers aboard a ship dissipate enough of the heat around a ship in the Mass Effect universe to allow them to enter atmosphere...barely. Larger ships definitely can't.

The _Normandy_ is right on the borderline of being able to make it, but with our weakened barriers, any screwup means we don't get a second chance, because we'll be giant ball of fire in the sky.

As the moon looms closer, Joker brings up info tabs on his display, dividing his precious attention between trying to keep us from getting shot and running the numbers of atmospheric density gradients, entry angles, and exit trajectories. No one else can help him, because ultimately, he's the pilot, and it's his intuition upon which all of this relies on. Sure, we can feed him the numbers, but only he can make that call.

Even Shepard is getting anxious, with matters so out of her control. She's actually fidgeting around as the ship has gone a little more silent. We're slightly pulling away from the Collector ship with the way Joker's redlining the throttle, but not by much, and not very quickly. But it's given us enough distance so that we're not constantly under fire anymore.

"They're changing their approach vector," Pressly announces, never taking his eyes off the sensor readouts. "Burning hard, looks like a geosync orbit approach."

From the corner of my eye I can see even Shepard relaxing a little; it isn't much, but at least it's a small indication that the Collectors think we're going to ground. Running _away_ from them is the easy part, though. As Joker so readily puts it when the _Normandy_ goes up against the heretic geth processing facility, it's only our thermal emissions that are hidden. There's nothing preventing them from looking out a window to find us, or to use something as archaic as radar or lidar even to see us and shoot that big giant beam at us.

Staying in one piece while we make a run for the relay, that'll be the really hard part.

Of course, that's provided we even survive the crazy shit we're about to pull. But it's the only chance we really have to leave the Collector's weapons range. They're not as maneuverable as we are, but that's not the problem. That weapon's reach is. I think Kaidan's busy estimating its range and power output right now, with some input from Tali in engineering, but I'm content to leave it at _really fucking scary_. The reason Shepard is so worried about actually taking a lead over the Collector ship is the same reason this is our only option.

There's a range band, a region where the Collector ship doesn't have to be maneuverable to hit us. The closer in we are, the harder it is for them to bring that weapon to bear, that was Shepard's original plan. The converse is true, as well. The farther away we are from them, the easier it'll be for them to hit us, especially if we keep up a predictable trajectory towards the mass relay. The further we are, the less they have to move the ship to point that death machine at us.

The only solution is to either put something between us and them, or to leave that range band as quickly as possible.

We're trying to do both right now.

"Thirty seconds to atmo. You better hang on to something, this is going to be a bumpy ride," Joker calls out, shoving all of the data displays aside with a swing of his arm and returning his full attention to piloting.

At some point, on some level, you've got to stop slaving over the numbers and the odds and just trust your instincts. As an engineer, that's terribly hard for me to do, because we're taught to check and double check, to rely on numbers and facts. For a pilot, that's a gift.

And if there's one pilot in this goddamn universe I'd trust to not kill us doing this, it's probably Joker.

"Twenty seconds."

The nose of the ship tilts down towards the horizon of the moon. It's a thick cloud of methane, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen down there. Dense enough to obscure vision and be really sodding toxic. Little sparks begin dancing across the forward windows before the kinetic barriers snap into effect and Adams redirects some power from the rear barriers to the front to blunt the impact. The shell around the ship slowly expands, but so does the fireball forming ahead of us as Joker forces the ship down into the atmosphere, using the Tantalus core's sheer thrust to slam the ship into a thick layer of compressed gas against its natural tendency to want to skip off.

"Hostile entering atmosphere in forty seconds." Pressly is still watching the scanners, but nearly everyone else is riveted on the sight in front of us.

The glowing liquid fire spills across the windows, held at bay only by the ship's kinetic barriers pushing against the incredible pressures of heat and expanding gases. The yellow glow eventually fades to a dull blueish tint, our cue that temperatures are reaching critical. If the barriers fail now, we're going to cook before we even realize it. But it's still not the most dangerous part. The ship itself creaks around us as the superstructure heats up and takes loads it wasn't designed to, with Joker continually forcing the ship into the atmosphere.

"Come on baby, hold together, come on," he mutters to himself, his eyes never leaving his displays. Is it me or is it getting warmer in here?

"Kinetic barriers at sixty-three percent," Kaidan reports quietly. "Sixty-one. Fifty-nine."

Even as powerful as the SR-1 is, even with her oversized power core, there's only so much the shielding can take. After all, the shields were designed to retard and blunt concentrated kinetic impact forces, not the proverbial sledgehammer of the ship hitting something of almost its own mass at something close to ridiculous speeds.

"Fifty-five."

"Status of the hostile?" Shepard asks almost absently.

"Still approaching. She's slowing down, Commander."

"Forty percent."

"Hostile is entering atmosphere. Descent is consistent with a powered entry."

"Just a little more, a couple more seconds," Joker whispers so lowly that I have to strain to hear it. There's something in his tone, a mixture of desperation and faith in this ship and her capabilities, as if he's urging her to pull this off.

"Joker..." Shepard starts, but the only reply is a tensing of his shoulders as his hands flick across the controls. "We're coming in too hot. You've gotta pull us up."

"Not yet, Commander."

"Joker-"

"Not yet!"

"Flight Lieutenant Moreau-"

"Not...yet..."

Kaidan looks over worriedly. "Barriers at twenty-one percent," he reports at the Commander's questioning look.

The plasma is starting to billow closer towards the ship now as the shields strain to hold it back, shrinking in diameter to reduce power drain. But even so, fountains of the superheated gas are reaching towards the hull, passing through the barrier, retarded in velocity and temperature enough that they just leave blackened scorchmarks against the pristine armored hull instead of eating their way through. But if this keeps up any longer...alarms are shrilling in the CIC, and over the muted intercom I can hear Adams hollering orders in engineering as structural warnings go off across the entire ship.

"Three...two...one..._hold on_!"

With that muttered countdown, Joker hauls back on the controls, sending the ship into an inverted climb and outside the world through the cloud of fire spins rapidly until the moon's horizon is up instead of down, and with a bone-jarring jolt and the creaking of protesting metal the _Normandy_ skips off the upper layer of the atmosphere and out into space in a semi-controlled tumble.

The kinetic barriers fail an instant later from the strain of keeping the massive pressure forces at bay, allowing long tendrils of superheated plasma to reach for the ship, greedily enveloping its hull as it burns through the ablative armor. The few structural alarms that weren't ringing yet start up with renewed urgency, bathing the CIC in a dim red light as every ounce of power is diverted to the dorsal barriers.

My eyes wander over the the ship's status display on my omni-tool as it receives real-time data feeds from the engineering stations across the ship. The port wing lights up red as the hull is breached by a burst of plasma melting through the wing's armor plating, the red slowly spreading as it makes its way through the bulkheads.

"No, no, no, _no_, not now, come on, don't do this to me, baby," Joker cries out as the consequences of that hull breach hit me at the same time as they do him. There's nothing I can do from up here, though...but I don't have to.

Someone, probably Tali, must have realized what's going on and is compensating by removing the thrust limiters on the starboard engine, and suddenly, right before the port engine winks out and goes black as all telemetry ceases, the other turbine roars to life, climbing to a hundred and twenty percent output.

Splotches of yellow and red dot the shield display, coming and going too fast for anyone to predict where the next shield failure is going to occur. One of the seeking tendrils finds a hole in the barriers on the starboard upper decks, lashing out violently and carving a gaping hole into the broadside of the ship, breaching the CIC to vacuum. Emergency bulkheads slam down to limit the damage, and the screams of panic cut off behind a curtain of steel.

And then we're suddenly free of the atmosphere, the cloud of burning gases around the ship dissipating into the emptiness of the void, leaving us almost adrift. Joker takes a moment to correct our heading and bring the ship's tumbling under control before running the throttle back up and pointing the ship straight towards the mass relay in the distance.

The noise begins to die down as alarms are shut off and the crew gathers their bearings. Miraculously, we're still in one peace, and I can see Shepard visibly relax. Even Kaidan offers a little relieved smile.

"Sensors still working?" our resident N7 asks no one in particular.

"Barely," comes Pressly's gruff reply. The man pokes his head into the cockpit, his uniform stained with soot and blood from a long gash along his forearm. "Hostile's caught in the atmosphere. They won't be chasing after us for a while."

"Good." Shepard lets out a little sigh. "Engineering, report."

"We're holding together somehow," Tali replies, surprising all of us up here. "This ship's built tough, but if we don't get her somewhere safe soon, the entire power grid is going to fall apart."

"Tali, where's Adams?"

"Chief Adams knocked himself out trying to get to the starboard engine vent controls," the quarian replies slowly, with an amused note to her voice. "He's got a bump on the head, but he'll be fine."

"Thanks, Tali. Joker, time to relay?"

"Three minutes, Commander."

"All right. Get damage control out there and get me a status report on the ship." She looks over at me and grins briefly. "Not bad for someone who's got nothing. And Joker?"

"Yeah, Commander?"

"You deserve a goddamn medal for that bit of flying there."

Our pilot chuckles lightly. "Can I take a pay raise, instead?"

The next two minutes go by in relative quiet as Joker throttles the engine down to something more reasonable. That is, something that won't risk blowing it up before we even get to the relay. The ship is pretty beat up, but it could've been worse, all things considered. A few hull breaches, lots of armor just slagged off, and power systems in ruins for the most part. The entire port wing and dorsal surface are going to require a rebuild, but by some miracle we've only lost four crew - Geralds, two gunners, and one unfortunate crewman who was too close to the CIC breach.

But we're alive, for the most part. And as callous as it sounds, we came out of it better than we would have at Alchera. Closing down the status display, I take a second to tilt my head back and close my eyes, my relief over us being still alive invaded by one thought. Four people dead.

Four men and women who won't be coming home.

It's better than fifteen, plus Shepard.

But somehow, it doesn't make it feel any better.

"One minute to relay, Commander," Joker announces. "Please tell me we've got power for it, Tali," he adds half in jest.

"No worries, we will be able to make the jump."

A little alert beeps at me and causes me to open my eyes again, probably a little more sluggishly than I should have. But we're home free, right?

My eyes widen as I scroll through the sensor log. "Joker, go evasive, right frakking _now_!"

"What?" he questions, but nevertheless reacts and puts the ship into a spiralling ascent, unsure of exactly _what_ he's trying to evade. A second later, a brilliant yellow beam flares right past us, searing through space and nearly clipping the already crippled port wing again.

"The hell? I thought we'd lost these guys?"

"Shepard!" I yell through the CIC, trying to catch her attention. Shit, shit, _shit_. "They're taking potshots at range," I tell Joker. The Collector ship is too far behind us for their main weapon to be in effective range. I mean, beam collimation in vacuum maintains cohesion longer than in atmosphere, sure, but they couldn't have fired on us without leaving atmo. Refraction and dispersion in atmosphere would've just about destroyed their effective range.

"What's going on?" the Commander asks as she rushes back into the cockpit. The opportunity to reply is taken from me as a second shot from the Collector ship angles up and past the forward windows. "The fuck?"

"They're out of atmo," I tell her grimly. "At this range, with full barriers up, their beam dispersion should've been wide enough to let us take a few shots, but..."

"We can't."

"Right." She turns towards our pilot. "How long?"

"If I keep trying to not get us shot?" Joker shrugs. "Maybe another minute?"

"Tali?"

"I can probably get you a little more thrust, but if we overdrive that engine any longer we're going to lose it. The current regulators are fried," the quarian replies from engineering. "You have ten, maybe fifteen seconds of full thrust at most."

"I'll take it. Joker, ahead full. Get us to that relay. Divert all power to aft barriers."

"Aye, Commander."

The _Normandy_ surges forward, her limping gait suddenly gone as the one remaining engine lights up with full power, hurtling us towards the mass relay. The range indicator continues ticking down as the navigational computer plots the jump. Almost there.

A stray shot from the Collector ship bears past the top of the ship. Looks like they still haven't given up and are trying to adjust their aim. Dammit, must go faster, must go faster. Come on, come on...

Almost.

There.

"Jump in three...two...one..."

I look up from my displays, just in time to see a glare of yellow light through one of the gunnery ports behind us. Before I can open my mouth to call out, the beam slams home, slashing through the _Normandy_'s weakened barriers and tearing through her armor plating as if it were tissue paper.

The beam slashes across the ship in less than a second, leaving behind a gap the width of a Volkswagen Beetle right across the neck of the ship, between the CIC and the cockpit, and suddenly I'm flashing back to the Alchera mission in the game. The way Shepard dies, the location of the damage, and I freeze in absolute shock and terror as the atmosphere rushes out of the breach. Kaidan is thrown to the ground as a section of the hull slams into his back. Garrus lurches backwards, away from the explosion of air and heat and gas, and Shepard, to my horror, is sent tumbling towards the hull breach by a rogue piece of debris that strikes her head. I reach out, forward, towards her, and manage to catch her wrist as she passes by me, but my grip slips on her armor's gauntlets.

And then the universe twists and turns around us as the mass relay warps space and time and catapults us away.


End file.
